


Apocrypha

by Sophia_Prester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-03
Updated: 2011-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-22 03:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 117,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Prester/pseuds/Sophia_Prester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story that takes place before and between the lines of the Winchester Gospels. It starts in a hospital in Sioux Falls and with a landmine in Vietnam. It starts when two people inexplicably fall in love on the eve of the Great Depression and when a man kills himself at a California reservoir. It starts with a phone call from a man who knows too much and with a memory of a murder that never happened.</p><p>This is the story of how John Winchester learned the truth, piece by shattered piece, and how that truth did not set him free.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

_When he goes to Heaven,  
To Saint Peter he will tell:  
"Another Marine reporting, Sir.  
I've served my time in Hell."_

\--Epitaph for a Marine who died at Guadalcanal

 

 **Now**

John Winchester will die less than five minutes from now.

It's about time. This day is nearly thirty-five years overdue, and he's long past tired.

Death won't be any kind of rest, though, and it won't be peaceful--not where he's going. He's not scared, not yet, but he knows he should be.

It's just that he can't imagine anything that could be any worse than the fires that have burned in his memory since nineteen eighty-three. He can't imagine anything worse than his son dying.

He tells himself not to think about it too much. He'll find out more than he ever wanted to know soon enough.

Little things distract him more than they should. A page over the hospital PA. A nurse passing by, quirking a smile at him and nodding hello. Laughter fluttering out of one of the rooms along with a scrap of bright conversation. The elevator dinging open to signal a dance at the door as people try to get on and off at the same time.

A fluorescent light flickers overhead and he looks around, but it's just one of those things.

Other than the light, there is nothing ominous--not in the oldest sense of the word--about the moment. This feels wrong. There should be a heaviness in the air to match the weariness in his bones. Something to signify the moment.

There's nothing. Nothing to tell of the huge burden he dropped on Dean's shoulders just now.

He wishes his last memory of his boy could be something other than that look of shock and horror, but he reminds himself it is better than standing by helplessly and watching as the rise and fall of Dean's chest slows and then stops.

For a moment, he actually considers turning around.

There is so _much_ he wishes he could have said, but the more he said the more he realized it was all too little, too late. Dean was already starting to panic at the strangeness of it all well before John told him about Sam.

If only he had more time.

John reminds himself that Dean now has the time that he no longer does. He has bought Dean that time. And Dean will do anything-- _anything_ \--to protect his little brother. It's not much, but it's just enough hope to hold onto.

Despite everything, part of him still believes in happily ever after. Dean _will_ find a way, and John hopes he won't lose himself in the finding.

By the time Dean finally pulls himself together enough to call out _Dad! Come back! What the hell is_ that _supposed to mean?_ John is far enough away that he can pretend not to hear.

It's better this way, he tells himself. By the time Sam gets back with coffee (the sudden thought of the coffee going cold and undrunk is sad in a way he can't put words around), it will all be over. He has made what peace he could with Sam, not that it's much.

He won't let himself hope for forgiveness. Not any more. Understanding, maybe, but no more than that.

There's no sign or portent, but John pauses at a window just the same, wondering if a storm (he is struck by a sudden memory of gray-green skies, howling wind, jubilant and bitter laughter cut short) will whip up at the last minute. Maybe he hasn't been careful enough, maybe what little he told Dean was enough to attract--

 _Enough_ , he tells himself. There is nothing more than a stray cloud in a blinding blue sky. He is safe, or at least he is for the next minute or two.

John passes the window unnoticed and unremarked, and walks into an unoccupied room. When he pulls out the Colt, a passing thought-- _one bullet left, one shot is all it would take_ \--comes with it. God help him, he actually wonders for a split second if he could make himself toss Dean's life away and just end all this madness right here, right now.

He dismisses the thought and hands over the Colt. No fuss, no foolery, just a solid thump as he sets it down on the table.

"Okay."

"'Okay?'" Azazel grins and then laughs as John's eyes skid away from looking too closely at his mouth and the memory of the kiss that sealed the deal. "That's all you've got to say, John? Seriously? You're coming up on the last words you're ever going to speak on earth, you know that, right?"

"There's nothing else to say. You held up your end of the bargain, I'm holding up mine. That's it."

For him, anyway.

"Really? No last-minute pleading? No pathetic attempt at trickery? No taking one last chance to tell me what you _really_ think of me?" Even now, coming out of a different throat, the voice is the same one that has haunted him for the past ten years.

John shrugs. There's no point in dragging this out any more. _Dean is alive. He'll take care of Sam. Dean won't let Sam die, and Sam won't let anything happen to Dean_. He holds on tight to that thought and waits for whatever happens next. He knows it is beyond imagining, so he doesn't even try.

"You're not even going to ask me what it's all about? You, who actually managed to find out about my special children? That's impressive, John. Truly impressive. And now you're not even going to ask me why?"

"Hadn't planned on it. It's not my problem any more."

Yellow eyes narrow and flicker with gold fire. If he didn't know better, John would say the demon is disappointed in not having himself a nice floor show at the end.

"You don't even want to know what your own part is in this, John? Because you still have a part to play... a _big_ one." The words whip out as Azazel takes John's chin in his hand. "You're up for a best supporting actor nod, but damned if you don't even know it."

John doesn't move, no matter how badly he wants to.

 _We've already sealed the deal. Get this over with._

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he says, although he finally knows the truth.

The truth is--and it's a hard truth--this is not his story. It never has been.

He just hopes that whatever ending his boys find is better than this one.

The demon frowns, then catches himself, and there's that mocking laughter again. This time, though, John thinks he hears something like relief. He draws away, and the sudden chill when flesh leaves flesh is numbing. "Let's not waste any more time. I may know how this ends, but hey, I'm not going to spoil the surprise for you. I'm nice that way. But I will tell you something--it's a _killer_ ending."

He laughs, then rests two fingers on John's eyelids, closing them with obscene gentleness.

"Good night, John-boy."

First, there is blackness. Then there is a fire that burns like no fire has ever burned before. Fire upon fire and nothing but fire, just as it was in the beginning, it is now and ever shall be, world without end...

 

 **October 2005**

The fire burst down at him just like it always did. One minute, John was in the nursery reaching for Mary, the next he was outside the house fighting to get in. He forced his way back inside like always, but this time, the fire caught him as he was going up the stairs.

Over and over again, he would try to fight his way through to her, but the fire always threw him back, hissing and laughing at him.

Then it rang at him. Persistent, penetrating, clanging at him over and over even after he opened his eyes. It took him two seconds to recognize the sound, and that was two seconds too long.

Phone. Room phone, not cell. John thumped the end table a few times, almost knocking the remains of his dinner to the floor before he got hold of the phone.

"H'lo?"

"Is this Bert... A _fra_ mian?" The pronunciation was tangled with laughter and too much liquor.

"Depends. What the hell do you want?" John sat up, rubbing his eyes and wondering who could be drunk dialing his current cover identity at three in the morning. It wasn't like good old Bert was an FBI agent or a U.S. Marshal or anything like that. He was just a traveler, passing through. Nobody in particular.

"Or am I speaking to John Winchester?"

John cradled the receiver against his shoulder and eased his gun out from under the pillow. The curtains were drawn, so he couldn't see if anyone was outside. At least it also meant no one could see in.

"Who is this?"

"It _is_ Winchester, right? Winchester or Remington or Wesson--something about guns, but I'm fairly certain it's Winchester." There was a slosh and a clink of ice against glass at the other end of the line. "Yes, Winchester. That sounds right. John _Win_ chester. I remember Bill talking about you, and I've heard some bits and pieces over the years, hither and thither and yon. You know how it is."

Bill? The only Bill he knew... and that explained it. John hadn't spoken to Ellen in over a year, but she still had his cell number. She could have given it to this yahoo.

This yahoo who had called him on the room phone, not the cell phone. _Shit._ He should be more on the ball than this, even with the wake-up fog. No one should know this cover identity. Dean knew who was on the current run of credit cards and drivers licenses, but he had know way of knowing which name John was using right now.

"Whoever this is, you got three seconds to explain before I hang up."

It shouldn't take long to trace the call. Star-69 might do it, and if that didn't work, it would take only a few hours to get hold of the motel's phone records.

"You're hunting down a Woman in White," the caller told him. "In case you still had any doubt, and you probably don't, you are absolutely one hundred percent correct about the Constance Welch lead."

John cast a quick glance at the articles tacked up on the motel room walls even though they were only patches of gray in the dark. "Great. Since you know so damned much, how about you tell me where the hell she's buried before she kills somebody else."

"Hmm. _Maybe_ I could... but I won't. What I _will_ tell you is that right now you have salt lines in front of your door and along the windowsill as well--smart man. There are also some cats-eye shells. I'm not certain how many, and I don't know exactly where, but I would suspect you placed them at the cardinal points and at the corners of every possible entry."

Through the drunkenness, John thought he heard a trace of accent. Maine? No--not quite, but close.

"At least, that's what I or any other right-thinking person would do," the man continued. "Although they are spooky little things, aren't they? Quite aptly named--they always make me feel like someone or something is spying on my every move." The man snickered as if he'd just told a really good joke.

"Who is this?" The shells were still in place, exactly as the stranger described. They should protect him against most scrying magic, and this guy didn't sound like a big player. Chances were he'd done some recon earlier and was now drunk enough to do something stupid with the information. "You tell me who you are and why you're jerking my chain, right now, or we're done."

On the one hand, he didn't have the time or patience for these stupid horror movie games. On the other, another kid had disappeared, and even though it was probably too late, it might not be. Not yet. Maybe this idiot had information he could use.

There was a long pause at the other end of the line, but John heard the sound of a cabinet closing and something glass being set down on a hard surface.

"Me? Oh, I'm no one important. No one you know. I was merely checking some information, and hoping to find out I was wrong. I suppose if I was wrong, you would have hung up on me already, and dismissed me as just another crazy. You certainly wouldn't have asked me where Constance was buried. Which unfortunately means I'm right. Damn it all to _hell_."

The laughter that had run underneath the caller's words until then was gone. He sighed, long and hard, and there was the sound of liquid splashing into a glass. "I shouldn't have called. I wish I hadn't, but after I called the registrar's office at Stanford--"

"You stay the hell away from my son." The words whipped out without thought.

There was dark, drunken laughter. "Of course! Not after what happened when I got through to the office. When I tried to find someone who knew Dean's number..." in the background, he heard something whistling like wind through rafters, rising like feedback, "...even worse...warn..." sputtering and rattling and blowing and hissing and shrieking "...know what happened that night...eighty-three... happen again..."

"Hello?" John could barely hear words through the howling static. "Warn? Warn me? Warn Sam? What do you know about-- _shit!_ "

John flung the phone across the room. That last burst of feedback was so sharp he expected to feel blood when he rubbed his ear.

When he picked up the phone, it was still intact but the shrieking had faded back to a dial tone. Star-69 only got him a 'service not available' message.

Fine. He would track down the number some other way, but it would be several hours before he could do anything about that. He got out his cell phone and called Dean.

The call went right to voice mail, but John didn't leave a message. He would wait until he had a little more intel on this call. Besides, Dean had enough on his plate with the New Orleans job.

There was another number he could call, but he wouldn't. Sam. The asshole had also tried to track down Sam. Had tried to track down Sam _first_.

Palo Alto wasn't all that far away. John had mentally traced the route out there when he started this job. If he left now, he could check the situation out in Stanford and be back in Jericho before lunch.

 _If_ nothing was wrong. Then he would track down that phone number and find out who the hell had been spying on him and his boys.

John grabbed his keys but stopped mid-stride before he reached the door. Whoever it was had mentioned Bill, but Bill had died back in ninety-five.

August, ninety-five. Just a little over ten years ago. John's hand squeezed tight around the keychain, and the truck key dug deep into the old scar on his left hand.

Ten years. Just as he had feared, demon sign had started going exponential back in January and even though he had connected the god-damned nursery fires in March and April to incidents of demon activity in ninety-five, it only showed him how much he still didn't know. The ridges of the key pressed against the scar, and once again he felt like he should be further along than this, that the answer was right there if only he could dig it out of his brain.

He had been told ten years ("... _give or take. Or not._ ") and while things had been ramping up, there hadn't been anything to indicate that the demon's end-game for this cycle. had actually started. Or maybe this phone call was the signal, the first and maybe only warning cry he'd get.

 _...know what happened that night...eighty-three... happen again..._

He put down the truck keys and picked up his journal.

He was probably wrong. He hoped he was wrong, but in case he wasn't, he scribbled a quick note towards the end of the journal. Dean would understand it, but few others would.

>   
> _  
> **Dean 35-111**   
> _   
> 

There were always dozens of jobs on the to-do list, and more being added all the time. The question was, which ones to take, which ones could wait, and which to hand off to someone else.

Jobs that were far away from where he planned to be working were good ones to hand off--and not just when he couldn't spare the travel time. A Wendigo-hunt deep in back country ought to keep Dean off the radar and out of John's hair after he finished up in New Orleans. After that, the rest of the journal might keep him safe if worse came to worst. Him and Sam.

There were other people who needed to be kept safe, but in their case, safety meant ignorance and invisibility. He and Adam had spoken last several weeks ago, and even though it was clearly their last conversation, the boy and his mother still had a connection to him someone might try to leverage.

Besides, Adam's existence wasn't something he wanted Dean to find out about by stumbling across it by accident.

John riffled through the journal and tore out a chunk of pages from 2002. He would get rid of them somewhere far from here. Then, he tossed the journal back onto the nightstand and headed out.

Instead of picking up 580 West, John took a different route than the one he'd run in his mind over and over since he took this job. Palo Alto was off the menu for now. Now, he was headed south on I-5 towards Pasadena, telling himself that if all went well, he would be back in Jericho by nightfall.

He also told himself he still had plenty of time to figure out what was going on and what to do about it, but he knew that was just a pretty little lie. Otherwise, he wouldn't have chanced leaving the journal behind.

He had been given ten years to sort this mess out, and now he had what, a few months? A few days? That was no kind of time at all.

 

 **Now**

At first, there is no time to think in Hell.

There is literally _no time_.

There is nothing but an eternal present of fire and iron and pain swirling, merging, and flowing into one another. He is on the hooks, he has always been on the hooks, he has been there for less than a heartbeat. Nothing changes, and yet there are patterns in the red morass that stands still and moves infinitely fast in all directions.

They are patterns he might begin to understand if things flowed in order and did not just exist all at once. There is sound--a bone-shaking bass chord that would pin him in place even if the hooks were not there--but there is no sense.

It is forever, it is an instant. Thought cannot move forward.

But then (because there can finally be a _then_ ) a slit opens in the red, and Azazel has Alastair take him down from the hooks and lash him to the rack with his own guts.

Now (because there can finally be a _now_ ), there is time. There is plenty of time.

John knows time is passing because Alastair pulls his skin away from his body with finicky slowness. He starts with the legs.

"This is just the first course, John. It's just a _taste_ of what's to come."

Azazel insists on being there for John's inaugural session. Alastair is not happy about this, and there is an extra dig of the knife at every interruption. John tries to scream, but his throat is full of his own blood.

There is plenty of time, but he cannot think of anything besides pain.

It is only when Azazel speaks again that John can focus beyond the torment.

"You should be grateful, you know. Remember, thanks to me, you had thirty-three extra years to enjoy." Azazel laughs. "And now you get... Alastair. When he puts your hands back on, I'll expect a thank-you note."

He pats what's left of John's head and slips back into the boiling darkness.

If it weren't for the pain that has become his everything, John would laugh because Azazel knows so much less than he thinks he does.

John didn't have thirty-three extra years to enjoy. Azazel is wrong.

He had thirty- _five_.

 

 **1971**

It should have ended when John Winchester was killed in action nine days before he was due to ship back to Camp Pendleton.

He had already had five pieces of mortar shrapnel taken from his side, leaving him with a Purple Heart and a few scars to show for his trouble. He'd shed his blood, he'd put in his time, and in just a little over a week, he would be heading home.

He knew better than to count days, but the knowledge that he was down to single digits burned at the back of his mind like a flare. All he had to do now was survive.

The day he should have died was a foul dishrag of a day, so humid and so hot that the on-again off-again rain made walking feel like swimming in dirty bathwater. The sun cut through the clouds from time to time, and each time it did, the air got so thick it stuck in his throat and clogged his lungs.

John was on his last scheduled patrol, taking point with Deacon on slack. There was no sound but the rain pattering through the triple canopy and the occasional sucking squelch as a boot pulled free of muck. He still kept looking up and around sharply as if he heard people whispering up in the trees. More than once he was sure he heard his name. The ant-prickle feeling of being watched was nothing more than the single-digits jitters, he told himself, but he didn't believe it.

Something was about to happen. He knew it like he knew his own name.

Nine days before he was due to go home, at three minutes and twenty-two seconds past thirteen hundred hours, John Winchester was destined to have been blown to kingdom come, leaving Francis Deacon spattered with bits of blood and gristle that used to be his friend. As for Deacon, he was slated to stop the nightmares three years later by putting a bullet through his head.

Neither of these things happened.

John flicked a hand signal at Deacon. They needed to shift direction away from a too-open space in the jungle. Just before John made the turn, the sun broke cover for just a second, and the raindrops blazed searing white.

John slowed his pace and squinted against the light. He stepped forward, but a harsh whistle stopped him mid-stride, so sudden it felt like someone had grabbed hold of his collar. He turned towards the sound to see Deacon standing stump-still, his face so pale it nearly glowed. John cocked an eyebrow.

 _What?_ he mouthed.

 _Don't. Move._

Deacon pointed at John's legs. The sun was under cover again, and at first John couldn't pick out what Deacon wanted him to see. He almost crouched down to check closer to ground level, but he caught on just in time. He almost didn't, though. The camouflage patterning on his pants masked the rise in his cuff where the fabric brushed the tripwire.

John eased back slowly, careful not to jog the wire. After taking a few seconds to breathe, he peered through the leaves to see what had nearly killed him. It was a standard issue claymore mine, with the words THIS SIDE TOWARDS ENEMY embossed across the front. Friendly fire, then, but that wouldn't have made him any less dead.

He checked to find where the tripwire ended, and then the two men set off again, circling well clear of the mine.

They concluded their patrol without any further incident, and without any more feeling of being watched.

The next eight days were nothing more than the usual 'hurry up and wait,' and the boredom was its own kind of torture.

The night before they were due to head back stateside, John and Deacon finally had the drink they had wanted a week ago. The rest of their buddies were celebrating their last night in-country more boisterously, but John wasn't in the mood for that kind of noise. At least, that's how he explained it to himself.

Whatver the reason, he didn't quite feel like being around people just then. He wasn't sure what it was, but he couldn't shake it. He'd come much closer to death before--hell, he'd been wounded badly enough they'd nearly sent him home--but this was different. A week had gone by, and John still felt like something was off-kilter, unbalanced, _wrong_. Like maybe he really had died and was only walking around like he wasn't because someone had fucked up the paperwork.

Deacon didn't understand the problem, but he sure as hell knew a solution: he liberated a bottle of Wild Turkey from somewhere (John didn't ask), and found them a quiet spot between a couple of Quonsets. For a while, the two of them just sat there, butts on sandbags and backs against sheet metal as they passed the bottle back and forth.

"You owe me, you know," Deacon said. He took another slug and passed the bottle over. "For saving your life. _Again_. Just in case you forgot or something."

John said nothing. He took a drink and thought about Mary hearing of his death. The brass would've gone to his dad's house a week ago to break the news. Someone else would have had to tell Mary. Would his dad have thought to do it? Maybe she would have heard it third or fourth hand days later, maybe even in passing as she overheard someone saying what a pity it was about the Winchester boy.

He imagined it all, so vivid it was as if it had really happened. Like maybe he really was dead, and the taste of bourbon and the ridges of corrugated metal jabbing into his back were part of some miserable, low-rent afterlife.

Deacon grunted in agreement to whatever John had not said. "Those were some crazy odds, huh?"

They'd hashed this out before without benefit of alcohol. By rights, John should not be alive, but the sun had broken through the clouds for just long enough at just the right moment. Deacon was standing at just the right place and looking in just the right direction at just the right time to see beads of water flare into a line of white light along the tripwire. He was clearheaded enough to know what it meant and to signal John. If that last step had carried John forward another inch, if he hadn't stopped so fast when he heard Deacon's whistle, if he hadn't seen the tripwire and known just how to step back...

"Hell, damn near miraculous," Deacon said when the silence grew too long.

John laughed, soft and low. "Guess you could call it that, but I dunno..." He shook his head.

"Heh. That's right. You're one of those godless atheists. Practically a fucking commie. Huh. Maybe I shoulda let you die, ya damned pinko." Deacon mock-glared at him. "You know what they say--'better dead than red.'"

Deacon said that last with all the scorn it deserved, and followed it with a big gulp of whiskey. They'd drunk-talked about that before, and neither could think offhand of a situation where dead was the better option. Even if they got taken prisoner, there was always the chance of escape, right?

"Not my fault the old man likes to sleep in on Sundays." John's father had little patience for church and prayer or anything else he thought of as 'damnfool superstitious nonsense' and wasn't about to put John through the kind of craziness and misery he'd endured growing up. "Anyways, doesn't matter if it's dumb luck or some kind of 'guardian angel' deciding I needed to be spared--I'm alive and that's all that matters."

Alive and _going home_. It still didn't feel real. He wondered if it would feel real when he got on that plane, or when he stepped on home soil. Maybe it wouldn't feel real until he got back to Kansas.

No, it wouldn't be real until he was back with Mary. Seeing Mary would make it real. When he saw her, that's when he would finally feel like things hadn't just been put on hold, leaving him in some sort of limbo.

It still surprised him, still scared him, how much he loved her. Sometimes it felt as unreal as being alive did right now.

"Dumb luck or an angel, huh?" Deacon pursed his lips and nodded slowly. He was a profound drunk, which John often thought was a lot more annoying than an angry drunk or a mopey drunk. "Have to say, I think dumb luck sounds better to me."

"Hmm? How so?" John knew he would regret asking. Deacon's logic often took the kind of twists that were hard enough to follow when he was sober.

"Dumb luck's just dumb luck, y'know? Numbers. Odds. _Math_." He looked sidelong at John, so serious he had to be four or five sheets to the wind. "Ain't nothing personal about math. Angels, now, they'd want you saved for a reason."

"And that's bad?" John asked, laughing. He'd have a hell of a hangover tomorrow, but right now he didn't much care. He was loopy from the booze, but at the same time, it grounded him. Made things seem less unreal. He'd have to remember that.

Deacon shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. But you know how it is when the brass volunteers you for a job. Might be important, but it ain't hardly ever pleasant." He took a swig, then passed the bottle back to John. "And you and me, we're a-headin' back home. This ain't the time for some higher-up--some _way_ higher-up--to be sending you back into the shit."

John knocked back another shot, then nodded, sharp and certain.

"Well, thank _god_ I'm an atheist, then!"

He raised the bottle in a salute as Deacon laughed himself sick.

 

 **1983**

Deacon sat down on the bed next to John and handed him a flask. He said nothing, and John was grateful for it.

He was already sick and fucking tired of all the platitudes everyone kept inflicting on him.

 _I'm so sorry._

 _Let me know if there's anything I can do._

 _We'll be keeping you and the boys in our prayers_.

Sorry didn't fix anything, there was nothing anyone could do to bring Mary back, and prayers didn't do shit.

Whiskey, though, whiskey could dull things just enough to where he could think without wanting to howl and put his fists through the drywall. Whiskey would burn as it slid down his throat, taking his mind away from those other fires.

"Thanks, Deac," he rasped. He handed the flask back over before he gave in to the urge to drain the whole damned thing.

"Any time." Deacon took a swig, then capped the flask and tucked it back in his jacket. He looked around the motel room, and his eyes rested on the other bed in the room. A lump that slowly rose and fell under the denim bedspread was the only sign of two sleeping little boys. "How long are you three gonna be crashing here?" he asked softly, mindful of Sam and Dean.

"Just 'til tomorrow. Mike said Katie'll have a room set up for the boys by then. Not sure how long we'll be staying there, or where we'll go after, but at least it's not here. A fucking motel's no kind of home."

Nothing was home any more. He didn't see how anything ever could be again.

Deacon grunted in assent. "Sorry I can't stay for the funeral." There was a long pause. "You need any kind of help with that?"

"I'll get it figured out."

He didn't even know where to start.

When his dad died a few years back, all the plans had been made well in advance, everything was already signed off on and paid for, and a draft obituary had even been tucked in the file along with the paperwork from the cemetery. The obituary was sorely out of date, having been written shortly after John had enlisted, but John had to do little more than add _and his grandson, Dean_ after _survived by his son, John_ before sending it off to the paper. At the time, he had wondered who would have edited the obit if he had died before his dad did, and if the confident declaration about being survived was the only way his dad could pray that his only child would make it home safe from the war.

John should have been similarly prepared, but why the hell should he be thinking about his wife's funeral when a month ago he had made the first deposit in his youngest son's college fund? He should have taken the time to write down somewhere that he would be _survived by his wife, Mary, and his sons, Dean and Samuel_. If he had, maybe everything would be different.

When was he going to wake up from this? This all had to be a dream, right? Nothing this wrong could possibly be real, could it? He closed his eyes and felt his throat tighten against the truth.

"Look, I appreciate you coming all the way out here on short notice, Deac." He should have asked about this on the phone, but when he'd tried, he couldn't string the words together in a way that didn't sound insane. Besides, if Deacon was here, in person, he would find it much harder to placate John with an easy lie.

"Not a problem," Deacon said breezily, even though John knew the visit meant a seven-hour drive and losing a day's pay. "You'd do the same for me. You owe me, remember?"

John let out a harsh laugh at that. He was just starting to put words around the idea that Deacon hadn't done him any favors by saving him for _this_ when the lump on the bed whimpered and wriggled. Dean poked his head out to look over his shoulder at the adults. His eyes (so much like Mary's) were wide with fear at first, but they narrowed with suspicion when he saw Deacon.

If Deacon hadn't saved his life, John wouldn't be sitting here right now feeling like he'd been ripped in two. But there also wouldn't be a little boy with green eyes (just like his mom's) glaring at him as he curled around his baby brother.

"Hey, there pal. I'm your uncle Deacon." Deacon patted a spot on the bed next to him. "Whyn't you come on over here and say hi?"

Dean said nothing. He continued to give Deacon the stink-eye.

"Not much of a talker, huh? And here I thought your daddy told me once you were a real motor-mouth."

"Go back to sleep, Dean. This is grown-up time," John said. Dean blinked in surprise, then yanked the covers back up over himself and Sammy as if they were twin turtles retreating into their shell.

Deacon raised an eyebrow at him. "I was half expecting him to give you a 'yes, corporal,' after that," he whispered.

"Sorry," he said even though it wasn't Deacon he should be apologizing to. What he'd meant to be calm and soothing had come out with a sharp bite. "I'm no good at this. Not alone. Dean's not normally... he hasn't spoken much, no, hasn't spoken at _all_ , not since..."

Again, Deacon knew better than to say anything. He just made a grumble that could have been 'I see what you mean,' or 'I'm sorry,' but was far more honest than either of those two would have been.

John hunched forwards, resting his elbows on his knees. He watched that small, denim-covered lump and counted every rise-and-fall of breath as if everything in the world depended on it continuing.

"The other day, I told Mary we needed to install an 'off' switch on the boy, he talked so damn much." He heard Mary laugh and saw her roll her eyes at the quip. It was just the other day, and it was so long ago. "Never thought we'd find it."

Deacon didn't laugh, which was good, because the joke he told Mary wasn't funny any more, not when Dean should have bounded right over and started crawling all over Deacon, demanding his attention and telling a rambling story about a bug he'd found and what cartoons he's been watching and what one of the girls in his preschool class had said to him.

John took a deep breath, but it did nothing to make what he had to say any easier or any clearer.

"Deac? When I called you, how much did I tell you about what happened? About how Mary died?" He kept his voice low so Dean wouldn't overhear.

"Just that there was a fire, and you barely got the boys out in time." Deacon spoke with the same kind of care he had used when walking though the jungle, wary of traps and tripwires. "You also said you'd tried to go back in to get Mary out, but the fire'd gone wild by then."

John shook his head. He'd told the police something like that right after, while everything was still happening over and over and all at once in his mind until he couldn't tell what had happened in what order. At the time, he couldn't remember for sure if he was inside or out, upstairs or down when he'd passed Sammy to Dean and told Dean to get Sammy to safety. He could picture it so many ways--Dean at the top of the steps, Dean out on the porch or all the way out on the walk, Dean standing in the doorway of the nursery and staring up at the ceiling...

It didn't matter. Whatever he'd said had made enough sense that the police had taken his word for it. As for the things that hadn't made sense, he kept his mouth shut. All those things he'd seen, it was just his mind jumbling things up and playing tricks on him. It had to be.

He spun the story out slowly, constantly checking to make sure he was telling Deacon what he remembered and not what he thought must have happened. The two were already starting to become indistinguishable.

That night, he hadn't gone to bed when he normally did, even though he'd told Mary he would be up in a few minutes. He was tired enough, but before he could call it a night, the kitchen light flickered, then flickered again in tandem with the porch light. That knocked him back awake again, and he went down to the basement to check the fuse box. He looked it over for a good ten minutes before deciding that nothing looked off or seemed to be running hot, and that he would tighten the screws in the distribution panel in the morning. The thing hadn't been touched in years and was due for some maintenance anyhow.

("So they think that's what started--" "Yeah, but that's not what I wanted to tell you.")

Dealing with the lights and the fuse box didn't take long, but it left him feeling too jangled and wide-awake to try to go to bed just yet, so he figured he'd watch TV for a bit. The late movie had already started, but it was one he'd seen a few times before. It was just the sort of thing that would help his brain quiet down.

"I must've fallen asleep, because next thing I know, I hear... I hear Mary _screaming_ up in the nursery. I thought something was wrong with Sammy--"

There had been so many scares, both before and after Sam was born, that the old terror had snapped into place immediately. Even now, that familiar, gnawing dread came back just thinking about it, and John had to breathe in time with his sons for a while before he could continue.

"But then it went quiet. I couldn't hear Mary, but I could hear Sammy making noises like he does when he's watching his mobile." The mobile that was now gone just like everything else in the nursery, and how much fucking longer would these stupid little things keep blindsiding him like this? "So, I go up to the nursery, but Mary's not there. Sammy's looking up at the ceiling happy as can be, but then I see-- _thought_ I saw--something dripping on his face."

He didn't say anything about reaching down and rubbing the warm slickness between his fingers and knowing at once what it was. The details of what he saw snapped out clipped and unadorned.

Mary, on the ceiling, a gash across her belly.

He said nothing about the way his sanity burst and flowed away like water. Or about how Mary struggled to breathe, struggled to talk, and how she _looked_ at him just before...

"Next thing I know, there's fire covering the whole ceiling. It just... burst out from behind her. I remember grabbing Sammy and getting him out of there. Dean had come running when he heard the noise, and I handed Sammy over to him and told him to get outside as fast as he could."

"Wait. You're saying Dean _saw_ what happened?" It wasn't the first time Deacon had chosen to interrupt, but this time it was with a question John was in no way prepared to answer.

"I don't know!" John caught himself too late, but his shout didn't seem to have disturbed the boys. They should have taken this outside, but John was not letting the boys out of his sight any more than he absolutely had to. His voice dropped to a low hiss. "I don't know if there was anything for him to see. Aren't you going to tell me I'm crazy? That there's no fucking way I would have seen Mary up on the ceiling like that?"

Deacon made an exaggerated 'I don't know' face and shrugged with his arms held out wide. "Is that what you want me to tell you? I can, if that's what you want, but you haven't told me the rest of the story. What happened after you told Dean to get out of there?"

John just gaped at him for a second, then let out a frustrated _huff_ and finished the tale. "Not much," he grumbled, even though this was the part that kept changing on him and kept haunting him. "After I sent Dean off with Sam, I went back to the nursery to get Mary. I guess I still didn't believe what I was seeing. But when I went back into the nursery, the whole room exploded into fire. It was like napalm times ten. No, worse than that. I still don't know how the hell I got out of there in one piece--it felt like the fire just knocked me all the way downstairs and out to the front porch. Dean was still standing there just outside, and I got the three of us clear only just in time. The house went up like a bomb had gone off inside."

He didn't say he was done. He just waited while Deacon thought. The flask made another appearance, but Deacon was too caught up in whatever he was thinking about to offer it to John. Just as well, probably.

"That all sounds pretty fucked up, John," he said after a bit. "You think that all really happened?" It wasn't a challenge--it was a sincere question.

"How? It's what I remember, but..."

"But?"

"I guess maybe I do want you to tell me that I'm crazy," John said after a while. "It's not like it's not rumored to run in the family--I know I told you about my grandmother. So, yeah, crazy. Or maybe... remembering something?"

He didn't know which would be worse.

Deacon's brow furrowed. "Not sure I'm following you, Johnny."

"What I saw, I know it's impossible, but it _feels_ real. Every bit of it. Even now. And there's something else. It keeps getting mixed up with something that feels like a memory. There's not a lot of details, but I keep thinking I remember a fight... well, the end of one. It wasn't looking good for us, whoever 'us' was. I was pretty much down for the count. After that, it gets even fuzzier."

John stared down at his hands, and the thin, straight scar that looked like an ivory thread draped across his left palm. It had something to do with this particular memory, but he didn't know what.

"When I try to remember more, I can't. It just comes in bits and flashes, and over and over there's this image, this _memory_ of seeing a woman looking up at me and burning to death. She's on fire, and it's something _I_ did. To her. It feels real the way seeing Mary..."

He swallowed hard against the bile that rose up.

"It feels like something that really happened, Deac. The fire, and me setting a woman on fucking fire." He clutched at the side of his head, but that did nothing to stop the pounding that started when he tried to remember, tried to see something more than a charred, screaming face looking up at him in fear and despair. There was a flash of red somewhere in the image, but he couldn't tell what it was. Not fire, though, and not blood.

Deacon waited for him to continue.

"Every time I dig at that memory I see Mary, and whenever I think of Mary on that ceiling, it always turns into, well, something else." He took a deep breath and took the plunge. "Deac, you've got to tell me, and I need you to be honest--did something happen? Did I _do_ something? You know, back when we were in-country?"

Deacon stared at him for a second, slack-jawed. Then he started to laugh, but cut it short before it disturbed the boys. He shook his head, smiling sadly. There was no sign of defensiveness or deceit.

"'Do something?' You mean like as in some sort of Mai Lai shit? That kind of thing? Oh, _hell_ no. Yeah, you and I went on a couple of real benders off-duty, but other than that, it was all squeaky-clean U.S. Marine. Worst you and I ever saw was that mortar bombardment that killed Don and Lewis, and damn near killed you."

John moaned and tried to dig his fingers through his skull. So, he was just going garden-variety crazy, then. What did that mean for the boys? Where could they go? Mary had no family left, or at least none she cared to acknowledge. All John had were some way distant cousins out in Delaware, but he didn't even know their names. You couldn't call that family.

"Well, there's one possibility you haven't mentioned," Deacon started, but John held up a hand to cut him off--Sam had started crying softly. Just whimpers, but John knew that sound would be followed by impossibly loud screams if he didn't act quickly.

John got up and walked over to the other bed and pulled back the covers. Sam was squirming, and his face was starting to grow red and twisted in rage. The faint _shhh, shhh_ from Dean was the most noise the boy had made in nearly two days.

"C'mon buddy, let's see what's wrong. Let _go_ , Dean--I've got him. Go back to sleep, 'kay?" He scooped up Sam and took a tentative sniff.

"He need to be changed?" Deacon asked in a tone of voice that indicated he'd make himself scarce in a hurry if the answer was 'yes.'

"I don't think so. Shouldn't be hungry, either." He rested Sam against his shoulder and patted him gently on the back. Sam settled well enough, although there were soft, discontented whimpers every couple of breaths. John closed his eyes for a moment, and like Sam, wished it could be Mary there to hold him instead. He wished he knew how to explain why she wasn't.

He sat back down and glared at Deacon when Deacon scooted a few inches further away and looked at Sam as if John was holding a live hand grenade and not a baby.

"Too bad those two can't tell you what they saw." Again, Deacon was sidling gingerly past traps and tripwires.

"I'd rather know they didn't see anything," John said. He leaned his cheek against the top of Sam's head and wondered if the boy was running a fever and if he would be able to tell if so.

"That's kind of what I was getting to." Deacon wasn't looking at John, and his hands were fidgeting as if he was struggling to keep himself from reaching for the flask. "The way you keep talking, it sounds to me like you really saw something. You ever think that maybe you did?"

Too many thoughts, too many images, clanged around in John's head for him to answer.

"Look. I know how you are. You'd rather think you-- _you_ of all people, for Christ's sake--might be another Lieutenant Calley than believe in any kind of supernatural woo-woo crap, but I don't know. There's things I've seen over the past ten years that make me think that maybe there is. Not that I like to think about it much, but ah, hell... Let's just say there's a reason I'm not writing you off as nuts."

The flask made a reappearance and was handed over, and this time John took two good swallows before passing it back. Sam grumbled at the jostling.

"Couple of years after I got my discharge, I was working as a guard at a psych hospital. Old place, _nasty_ history. Anyhow, I saw something I'm damn sure was a ghost, and I also saw what this guy did to get rid of it--you want to talk about some seriously weird shit, that'll top the list. It worked, though. Seen a few other weird things since then, too, like someone all of a sudden flipped some kind of switch ten years back and all the rules changed." Deacon flumped back, and his head bounced on the edge of the mattress. "Ah, crap, I know this ain't what you wanted me to tell you, Johnny, but I don't think you're a killer, and I don't think you're crazy. I think maybe you saw something, but damned if I know what, or what to do about it."

John almost told him to get the hell out right then, but Deacon had saved his life twice and Deacon had just driven seven hours to get here. John also didn't have that many friends that he could afford to drive one away, especially now.

"I can't believe that, Deac. I won't."

If there was a _thing_ that had killed Mary, then it was still out there. It would have had a reason. It might be waiting. But waiting for what? And what the hell was he supposed to do about it? Sam squirmed on his shoulder, sleepily protesting as John held him tighter.

"Then forget I said anything," If Deacon had sounded huffier about it and less like he was offering genuine advice, John would have felt less guilty.

"I'm sorry, but even _if_ I saw it, I won't believe it," he said as if Deacon had not just pulled back his suggestion. "You say I'm not a killer, so that means I must be crazy. That's the only answer I can accept."

"Okay, I know you didn't napalm a village, but all those memories could still be one of them, you know, Post Toasties things or whatever the head shrinkers are calling it now." Deacon made a scrambling motion at the side of his head as he sat up. "You were able to pull it together enough to get your boys out of the house, though. That's gotta count for something, right?"

"Still don't know how I did it. The way the fire--hold on."

Sam had finally fallen back asleep, but from the way Dean was fidgeting under the covers, John suspected he was about to have another crisis on his hands. He thought for a moment, then gently placed Sam back in the bed. Dean's arm went right around his little brother almost faster than John could see. The fidgeting stopped, and as John watched, Dean's breathing dropped back into the evenness of sleep.

John pulled the covers back over them, then sat back down next to Deacon. He kept his voice low, just in case. "The way the fire exploded, the way it went wild so fast... If Dean hadn't been standing right there, I wouldn't have gotten both him and Sammy out in time."

Even a glancing thought about that particular what-if made his guts twist violently.

Deacon stayed quiet, but John recognized the kind of quiet that meant thinking. They hadn't seen each other since John got married, but as soon as Deacon had showed up at the motel, everything slipped right back into a familiar rhythm despite the years.

"Sometimes, dumb luck is on your side," Deacon said after a while. "Sometimes, it ain't. It's like I told you a long time back--it's not like math is out to get you or anything."

John shook his head, and he let out a sigh that was close to being a laugh. "Yeah, I remember that talk. Angels. Shit."

 _Angels are watching over you._

That was what Mary always told the boys every single night. If he concentrated, he could hear her saying it right now. He remembered how she had picked up that little not-quite-a-prayer before Dean was born, and how she would rest her hand on her belly and give her unborn son that gentle reassurance.

Funny thing, but there were times John found himself believing it, or maybe just wanting to believe it. Not any more, though. What kind of guardian would let his boys' mother be taken away from them like that? Would let her burn like that, looking up at him and bursting into flame and screaming as he touched her shoulder?

No. That wasn't how it happened. Mary was looking down, and he couldn't reach her, no matter how he tried. She wasn't in some abandoned wreck of a house, she was in Sam's room, and her blood was on Sam's face, and why was it in Sam's room, what was it doing there, was it after Sammy, was it...

His hands clenched and his nails dug deep into his palms. It was impossible. Mary had passed out from smoke inhalation and when John went back to get her after getting the boys out, he saw the nursery ceiling collapse on her. That's what he told the police. That was what had happened. Anything else was just his mind turning things round-about and upside-down. It had to be. Nothing was after Sam. Sam was safe, and John was going to make sure he and Dean _stayed_ safe.

He would start asking around about a shrink first thing tomorrow. No way he was going to put his boys through what his grandmother put his father through. No one deserved that.

"So, you gonna be okay?"

John started to give Deacon one of the pat answers he gave to all the platitudes. _I'll get through this. One of these days. At least I've got the boys. I'll manage. Eventually_.

But this was an honest question and it deserved an honest answer.

"No," he said plainly.

It didn't matter if it was due to dumb luck or angels; he couldn't imagine any torture worse than this.

 

 **Now**

The torture continues.

When he is off the hooks and their never-moving present, John is _very_ aware of how time passes. Every second. Every minute. Every day.

Every year.

There have been five of them. Years. He thinks they're years. That's what they are in this place, at least.

In the deepest parts of his mind, John feels time skidding past at different speeds as he is stretched out on the rack in Alastair's workroom. Slower, faster, backwards, in loops. Time, spooling out in all directions at once even as he endures his torture second by second by second.

This information doesn't do him any good, but what interests him--and distracts him in the too-brief pauses while Alastair changes instruments--is _why_ he can feel it. It's a sense of distant rivers, some flowing lazily, others churning into whitewater or swirling into treacherous eddies.

At the half-decade mark, Azazel tells him that this is still only the first course. Alastair and his apprentices have taken him apart from top to bottom and from bottom to top in more ways than John even thought were possible.

Recently, Alastair has moved from dissection to desecration, but he informs John that he's still just getting warmed up.

"All this is merely preparation, my friend."

John does not ask him _for what_. Neither does he tell Alastair he is not his friend.

The only thing that changes is that Alastair occasionally offers him a turn, a chance to take the pain out on someone else. He opens the door from his cramped and dingy lab to a hallway that changes every time John sees it. Alastair then gestures with a flourish and depending on his mood, he holds out a knife, a bonesaw, a vial of acid.

"Wouldn't it be nice to have a turn of your own? To take it out on someone who _deserves_ it? Not someone who came down here of his own free will out of some misguided noble impulse. You didn't _have_ to end up here, remember?"

John never answers.

Knowing that he's genuinely tempted by the offer has become its own form of torture. So is the growing sense that giving in is inevitable.

This continues for a few months. Then, during one of Azazel's occasional visits, Alastair's question is interrupted by a hiss that hits every nerve ending like acid.

"I thought we just had ourselves a nice little talk about timing, Alastair." Azazel is not wearing his favorite meatsuit, or any meatsuit for that matter. A sharp smile bends the darkness out in the hallway, then moves into the workroom, warping the cement and steel in ways that hurt him as much as Alastair's knives.

John tries to cringe away from it, but the nails in his arms and legs hold him fast and the pain jolts through him.

"Do we need to have it again?"

"I don't understand why you're surprised," Alastair drawls. "You of all people should know that patience is not one of my few virtues."

It's a good show of bravado, but in their years together, John has learned a fair amount about Alastair. He would take more satisfaction in Alastair's fear if he weren't trying to fold up in terror himself.

"Besides, he's nowhere near ready yet." Alastair holds up a knife and admires the way its edge glints hellfire red. "The meat still needs to be a bit more tenderized before we can _really_ get cooking... so to speak. I know what I'm doing," he snaps.

Azazel's smile bends everything again. There is a sound like a million insects buzzing and scuttling in the darkness. "I'll be watching."

The petty hacking and slashing Alastair indulges in after Azazel leaves does not hurt as much as Alastair no doubt intends.

By now, John has learned a little trick. He picked it a month or two back. At least, it feels like it was that long.

He does not know how he learned it, just as he does not know how or why he can feel time slipping by at different rates depending on where he looks. All he knows is that one day, when he was within one breath of accepting the knife, he heard a quiet, familiar voice deep in his head explaining how he could simply... step aside and pull a thin curtain between himself and whatever Alastair is doing to him. To his body.

He can still feel the pain, but it is off to the side somewhere. It doesn't reach the soul any more.

It's not just detachment. Alastair knows how to spot that sort of thing and work around it or tear it to shreds. He has already defused all the little mental tricks for dealing with pain that John had picked up in life.

Whatever this new thing is, Alastair knows even less about it than John does.

Alastair croons to himself and John about tenderness, and how he will achieve it. John is listening to something else, however. Something Alastair cannot hear.

 _The manifestation of the body in this place is a shield for the soul. It is also a bridge to the soul. It must be sufficiently weakened and befouled before they can begin the true work of corruption_.

That fact slides into John's mind the instant he wonders why the torture has mostly been physical up until now.

How does he know this? An old memory flutters to the surface of his mind, and a woman bursts into flame.

Then, the woman becomes to Mary, and he reaches up to her but cannot save her.

He can never save her.

That's the only problem with this little trick he's learned: It gives him time to think.

So, while Alastair turns him over as a plaything to an apprentice who is already more demon than human, John tortures himself far more effectively behind his curtain.

He tortures himself with endless rounds of 'if only.'

If only he had realized...

If only he had remembered...

He tortures himself with the vision of Mary striding into the nursery and calmly blowing Azazel's fucking head off and ending his existence before even one drop of demon blood could fall into Sammy's mouth.

If only. If only...

 

 **1973**

John lingered at Mary's house until nearly midnight Saturday. He would have stayed through the night, but she retreated further and further into herself as the evening drew on. When he tentatively, fearfully asked if she'd rather he went home, she nearly cried with relief.

Still, she said "Come by first thing," after he kissed her goodbye, and how could he even think of saying no? Less than eight hours later he was on his way back over as promised.

At this hour of the morning, all the casserole and condolence-bearing neighbors should be getting ready for church. Over the past two days, John had nearly worn himself out holding his temper and his tongue as busybody after busybody came by to congratulate themselves on how nice and compassionate they were being to the poor girl whose parents had both died on one terrible night.

So, when he pulled up to Mary's house, he was surprised and not at all happy to see a strange truck parked smack by the front walk. It had Colorado license plates, and when John brushed past, the hood was free of dew but barely warm to the touch. It hadn't been there overnight, but it had been there for a little while.

The front door was unlocked. He knocked on the doorframe as he walked through. "Mary? It's me. Is everything okay?"

Of course everything wasn't okay. It was as far from okay as you could possibly get. But there was the kind of not okay that was to be expected at present, and the kind of not okay that arrived in trucks with Colorado license plates.

"We're in here, John." He recognized that particular tightness in her voice, and he instinctively tensed, wondering what he'd done wrong _this_ time.

Mary was in the living room. She had cleaned it up some, but she couldn't completely erase the signs of the break-in that had ended in her mother's death. John didn't understand how she could bear to be in that place, but she stood her ground well enough as she stared down a stranger.

Whoever the bearded man was, he wasn't a condolence caller. He seemed as annoyed with Mary as she was with him, and he was dressed more for cutting down a tree or shooting a bear than for a neighborly stopping by.

"Ten years," Mary said to the stranger, continuing whatever had been interrupted. She cut a glance over towards John. She might not have been angry at him, but she was less than happy to see him. "That's what he said."

John tried to remember what he might have said that had to do with ten years, and felt a flash of something ugly when he realized he had nothing to do with whatever was going on here.

The stranger shook his head. "Like I told you, it won't be a problem by then. You can trust me on that, Miss Campbell. It will all be over." He looked over at John and shrugged. "Legal nonsense. Contracts. You know how it goes."

"Yeah, I know how it goes." He knew all about the tedium that followed death, and how the paperwork had kept his father busy and sane after his mother died. But the stranger's words were too fast, too glib. And what the hell kind of probate took ten years? He moved over to Mary's side, and was gratified that happy to see him or not, she scootched over to press up against him ever so slightly. "But I also know this really isn't the time, friend."

An expected death, after years and years of illness, was bad enough, even with half your mourning done in advance. But something like this, something you couldn't brace yourself for--that was something else. John had seen his share of sudden, violent death in the war, but this was beyond him.

"I'm only in town for today," the man said. He held out a hand. "Daniel Elkins. Mary's folks and I were in the same business."

Mary looked like she wanted to rip his face off with her teeth.

Elkins sighed, and drew back his hand and ran it over his beard. "Look, I know this is awkward as hell, but I hadn't heard they'd died when I headed out here for a visit." He looked at Mary, and this time the mule-stubbornness had softened. "I had no idea what I was walking into, honest. And I am sorry. And I _will_ take care of that problem for you. I swear it. As far as you're concerned, it's over. The whole thing. You're quit of it."

For a moment, it seemed that Mary wouldn't back down, but in the end, she broke. She looked like she was about to cry, but before John could reach out to her, she did an about-face that would have made his drill sergeant proud and headed back to the kitchen.

"John Winchester." John finally extended his hand. Elkins loooked startled, but took John's hand, staring at him with unsettling curiosity.

"So you're..." He cleared his throat. "Mary warned me you'd be coming by. I think that was meant to clear me out."

"No offense, Mister Elkins, but I think you've worn out your welcome."

Elkins nodded, and had the grace to look abashed after his effort at jocularity fell flat. "If I'd known, I would have waited a week." Then he glanced into the wreckage of the kitchen and grimaced. "Or maybe I should've come sooner."

"I don't see how it would've done any good." Near as anyone could tell, the would-be burglars fled the scene after Deanna confronted them. Maybe one of them shoved her, or maybe she fell while running for help, but either way, she'd hit the counter hard, breaking her neck.

Then, adding cruelty to cruelty, Samuel had been out tracking down Mary for whatever reason, and was so enraged to find her about to run off with John that he keeled from a heart attack on the spot.

John didn't remember much of what happened. He thought that maybe Samuel had taken a swing at him. All he knew was that one moment, Samuel was bellowing like a madman, and the next, John was waking up with his head in Mary's lap and she would not stop crying.

It still felt unreal. Strange. Like a dream. The last time he'd felt that, it was in the days after Deacon had saved his life, when he kept expecting someone in an officer's uniform to track him down and tell him that it was all a mistake, and it was time to get into his body-bag now.

"Shit. I _knew_ I should have tagged along after him..." Elkins said, but he was speaking to himself, not John.

John started to ask who Elkins was talking about, but Mary came back into the room. She had a hinged leather case with her, about the size of a large dictionary. She handed it over to Elkins, but she looked like she was tempted to snatch it back at the last second.

"There. Gun and ammo both. Just like you were promised." She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. "Now you can go."

Elkins didn't say anything, but he did open the case. John caught a glimpse of an antique revolver. Samuel had quite the collection of weapons, but this wasn't anything like what John had seen before.

"Like I said, I'll take care of that problem for you," Elkins said as he closed the case.

"Good. You do that. And don't bother coming back here." Mary took a step towards Elkins, and John matched her, ready to add muscle to the threat if need be.

"I won't have cause to," he said. "You can count on that."

He nodded farewell to John, then saw himself out.

There was a long silence, broken only by the thud of the truck's door and the rumble of its engine as Elkins pulled away.

John rested a hand between Mary's shoulders and began to rub small, slow circles. "Mare, who the hell was that? What's going on?"

Mary's face was blotched red. She shook her head and tried to say something, but only a squeak came out.

"Mary?"

He tried to hold her to him, but she wrenched away and yanked at the charm bracelet she always wore, tearing it from her wrist.

She screamed in rage and flung the bracelet across the room. It hit the wall with enough force to send one of the silver charms spinning off into a corner.

Not knowing what else to do, John went after the bracelet, but Mary stopped him with a harsh "Don't."

"Mary..." He needed to know what to do. What he could do. The night her parents had died, she had wanted to leave them behind. Instead, she had been left.

"Just--" She rubbed at her wrist, smearing blood from where the bracelet had broken skin. "Don't."

He was afraid she would ask him to leave, but she said nothing. She didn't do anything when he walked over to her and pulled her into a hug, but she didn't collapse into his arms so he could help take on her burdens. It was a long time of stroking her back before she let herself lean against him. She didn't sob, although before long he felt the warm wet of tears through his shirt.

"Don't," she said into his chest. "Don't leave me again, John. I'm so sorry. So sorry about everything. I couldn't lose you, too."

She wasn't making sense, but this was not the time to question it. He just stood there as long as she needed, feeling more helpless than he had ever felt in his life.

He had no idea what had gone on here today, and he didn't think it would help him any if he _did_ know.

So he did all he could do: he didn't leave.


	2. Part Two

**2005**

If his mystery caller really did know something about what had happened in 1983, then leaving without a word was the best thing John could do for his boys. The further he kept them away from the demon or anything connected to it, the better off they would be.

He told himself this over and over as he drove along, an old friend's words fighting against the memory of searing heat and the buzz of flies. The demon had done them enough damage already, he told himself. Besides, they were completely unprepared to deal with it.

 _Three guesses whose fault_ that _is, asshole_ , his conscience said. His conscience sounded a good deal like Bobby Singer.

Bobby didn't know what he was talking about.

His phone rang just outside Bakersfield, distracting him from the debate and the ghosts of ten years ago. He checked the number, but didn't answer. The same thing happened while he was stopping in Castaic to get gas. Dean, both times.

He got a message blip after the second call. Dean had finished up the job in New Orleans and was hoping to make it out of the city before tomorrow--getting out was shaping up to be rougher than the actual hunt thanks to all the damage and destruction. He asked where they should meet up, or if John had another job for him.

For just a moment, John kept the phone out and debated whether or not to call back. Then he snapped the phone shut and put it back in his pocket. He could always call Dean back if he found out this latest scare was a whole lot of nothing. Besides, Dean didn't sound too fussed about hearing back from him any time soon.

The phone came out again once he reached Pasadena, but after dialing little more than a 308 area code, he put it away again. He did this three more times before he finally got to the La Pintoresca branch library.

When he signed in to use one of the library's computers he handed over Martin Douglas's driver's license by way of ID and collateral. Martin was job-hunting, and needed to make use of the library computers for a bit.

As usual, John kept Monster and the job section of the local newspaper a quick alt-tab away while he ran the usual searches on house fires, cattle deaths, electrical storms, and the like.

Just like he always did these days, the first search he ran was for anything happening around Palo Alto.

His throat tightened when he saw that there had been a thunderstorm and a sudden drop in temperature the other day, but there had also been a cold front moving through the area. The change wasn't completely unexpected, so it was probably nothing. It had to be nothing...

 _...know what happened that night...eighty-three... happening again..._

... but he wasn't going to take that chance.

John automatically reached for his journal before recalling he'd left it in Jericho, and he swore loud enough to get the librarian's attention and a sour look. He gave her an apologetic smile and went back to work.

He didn't need the journal to remind him to keep an eye on the situation at Stanford. He would run another check that afternoon or maybe even head out there, depending on what he found out today. There was no point in checking New Orleans, since he already knew he couldn't sift out any patterns from the chaos of Katrina's aftermath. Besides, Dean was on his way out of there.

Next, he ran a search on Lawrence, Kansas for the week leading up to November 3, 1983. The patterns were still there, but this told him no more than it did when he first noticed it five years ago. He poked for more detail, but as always, nothing new leapt out at him. Checking into it was little more than hopeless habit these days.

He remembered the shock and the surge of hope when he had first found the patterns. After weeks of poring over the research Bill had left behind, the connection suddenly became clear. He remembered the hope at thinking it would all be over in a few months, or maybe a year or two at the most.

Even though John _knew_ by then what was after his son, 'normal' started to have the sound of something that might be more than a pipe dream or a fairy tale.

That dream hadn't lasted long. Ten years later, here he was, sitting in a California library and trying not to get his hopes up again. So he had a mysterious caller who maybe knew what happened that night, but what were the odds that the man knew something that could actually help him?

With his luck, it would just be too little, too late. Again.

As if to drive that point home, his next search revealed there had been three days of record lows right here in Pasadena from February twenty-second through twenty-fourth. There was even a write-up about how widely the temperatures had varied over a small area, complete with some bullshit meteorological explanation. When John checked the news for late February, he was not surprised to find a handful of missing persons reports. He was even less surprised to find that two were still unsolved.

Both had last been seen on February twenty-first, but that was all they had in common. One was a seven-year-old boy who had wandered off from his school group during a science-class field trip to Oak Grove Park. The other was a first-year Caltech grad student who had been doing research at JPL. Security had seen her leave, but she never made it to her car. A quick map check showed that JPL was not far at all from the place where the boy had disappeared.

He checked the articles for any other commonalities, but didn't find anything telling. Something about the candid photo of Michelle Dinh and her fiance seemed familiar, but the same could be said of any other picture of a happy couple. Here, though, he thought he saw something more than the memory of what had been taken from him.

He looked at the picture of Connor Talbot for a good long while, trying to place memories of his boys at age seven on top of the photo of a scrawny kid with curly red hair and bright blue eyes. As always, he saw a resemblance.

There might be some slim hope for Michelle, but if John was right, Connor would never be seen in this world again.

John ran another search on the date, then closed the search window and pushed his chair back from the desk. If anyone walked past, they'd see him staring in numb despair at a too-short list of jobs for construction workers.

He had been looking for this. He had been for _ten years_. The moment the calendar had rolled over to 2005, he began sending Dean on more and more solo hunts that would keep him occupied with ghosts and werewolves and the more ordinary sort of monster. Time was running out, and he devoted himself to searching for an answer.

He had missed _this_ by nearly a whole month. Or maybe he had seen it and stupidly dismissed it because of what didn't happen afterwards.

He should have been keeping his his eye on Pasadena, damn it, nursery fires or no nursery fires.

Those didn't show up until the middle of March, when an apartment fire in Flagstaff, left a six-month old baby girl alive but killed her teenaged mother. Mara Jenkins. John knew the name.

Ten years ( _ten years_ ) ago, Mara--then just eight years old--had gone into foster care after her father had been found ripped apart by a mountain lion. At least, that's what the official police report had said about his demise. The social worker who had been working for months to get Mara out of her father's custody had broken character long enough to add an acid 'good riddance' to an otherwise cut-and-dried account. In fact, the social worker had been his prime suspect for a few days.

John had gone in thinking it was a werewolf, and a quick glance at the gouges in Danny Jenkins' body supported that idea. A longer, more careful look had revealed traces of sulfur in the wounds. He found more in the storage facility where Jenkins had been found.

To cap it all off, in the middle of it all Sam went missing for two of the most terrifying weeks of John's life.

It was hard not to think that the fires had started in Flagstaff as a way of sending him a message.

Always too little, always too late. That's what the message said.

Always.

 _I'll be seeing you in ten years, give or take_.

If he wasn't already out of time, he was damned close to it. He had wasted enough time digging through stuff he'd dug through a thousand times before. Nothing new was going to jump out and clock him over the head with an answer. All he knew was that it was a demon, that it was patient, and that it had a plan for Sam and at least thirteen other children.

John cleared his browsing history and left the library. He left Martin Douglas's driver's license behind, but he didn't give a shit about that. He had put off the real reason for this trip long enough.

He drove to Oak Grove Park and parked as far away from the softball field as he could. If he looked straight ahead, he was staring right at the trailhead that would lead him down into the south end of the Hahamongna Watershed. He sat in the truck with the engine idling for a good while before finally turning the ignition off with a hard, deliberate twist. When he got out of the truck, he shut the door as firmly as he could without slamming it.

This wasn't where he had parked the last time he'd been here. Back then, they had gone off-road and stashed the Impala well out of sight of passing traffic. They had approached from the east, not the west as he did now. At the time, there had been only the buzz of insects, the crackle of brush, and the far off swish of cars on 210. Now he could hear voices and laughter from up on the softball field, with a radio playing just loud enough for him to hear it was the Beach Boys. The air was pleasantly warm, with just a hint of autumn crispness and nothing of the dry scorch and brushfires of August.

Still, something here told him beyond any doubt it was the same place. Maybe it was just his own knowledge that one of the gates to Hell itself was an easy hike away from here.

He should have died in this place.

He heard the sweet crack of a bat and a cheer as someone hit a home run and he imagined for a moment what it would be like to be up there, just goofing around with a game that didn't need to be taken seriously in any way, maybe grabbing a beer between innings.

Maybe, he thought, one or two of the people on that field had heard some of the rumors about the place, but they wouldn't take that any more seriously than they would an episode of the X-Files.

There were plenty of rumors about this place, and some of them were true. Over the past century, at least a dozen children had disappeared in the woods below him. And somewhere down there, at an unmarked spot between where he stood and the Devil's Gate Dam, he had salted and burned Bill Harvelle's body.

He counted to ten, then finally dialed the number he'd chickened out on four times that morning.

The phone rang just once before it was answered with a sharp bark of "Harvelle's."

"Hello, Ellen."

There was a crackle on the line that might have been a quick, harsh breath. John half-expected to be cut off by a click as Ellen hung up on him even though they were past that now.

Instead, he heard a muffled shout (he could picture her standing behind the bar and holding the phone against her shoulder) telling Jo to run out and get some more peanuts and chips before the shift-change regulars came in.

The phone unmuffled, and he heard Jo protesting in the background. There was a nice, clear, " _I'm not telling you twice, Joanna Beth_ ," followed by the thwack of a screen door slamming. He heard a rueful laugh and then Ellen was speaking to him again.

"Sorry about that, John. You know how it is."

"I've had more than a few conversations like that myself." It felt odd to be smiling just then, but he was. "Thanks for clearing her out."

"I wasn't doing it for your sake." It was sharp, but not entirely unfriendly. "So, what's up, John? Haven't heard from you in, huh, must be a year, now?"

"That sounds about right."

For three years after Bill's death, she had refused to talk to him, to see him, or even acknowledge his existence. Then, he ended up helping an old friend of hers track down a werewolf. Things nearly went wrong with the hunt more than once, with Diana only just barely keeping him from getting bitten and him returning the favor not thirty seconds later.

Less than a week afterwards, Ellen called him and told him about a poltergeist out in Kentucky, and would he mind taking care of it, as a favor to her? It was a messy job, but it had also been an olive branch of sorts.

"So, what can I do for you?" It was a genuine offer, but he had no idea how she would react to what he had to say.

"I got a call from someone this morning. It sounds like they have a lead on the demon that killed Mary."

There was a long silence at the other end of the line. "Okay...."

He could hear all the things she was trying not to let fly.

"For all I know, I'm just chasing shadows again--"

"You mean like you were before?" The bitterness burned through the phone lines.

"I wasn't--" He clamped his mouth and his eyes tight shut before he could say any one of a million wrong things. "Look. I know there's nothing I can ever do or say to fix what happened. If I could, I would. You know that."

He wasn't sure what it meant that she didn't hang up on him right then. There was another long silence, and then a deep, weary sigh.

"John, I'm sorry. I won't say I didn't mean what I said, but I'm sorry it came out like that. I'll do whatever I can to help you, you know that, but I still can't--" He heard something on the other end of the line, he wasn't sure what, but Ellen collected herself quickly enough. "I keep telling myself that you know better than anyone else, what it's like. What it does to you. It's just that forgiving don't mean forgetting, y'know? It also don't mean you ever stop hurting. I just keep on telling myself that at least I know the thing that got Bill is good and dead."

"Yes. It is." It was a lie, a god-damned lie, but he would make sure she went on believing it until he made it come true. Like she said, he knew what this sort of thing did to a person. "And one day, this thing will be, too. One way or another. It'll be over."

Ellen didn't respond at first. "I sure hope so, John. I really, really do." She cleared her throat. "So, what do you need?"

"Couple of things. There's some names I want you to check out for me. You've got better connections than I do on this kind of thing, and I've got a feeling I'm running short on time."

Once she gave him the go-ahead, John rattled off the names of the other children he knew of whose homes had gone up like bonfires back in eighty-three. In every case, ten years prior there had been some kind of demonic activity around one of the parents. He didn't tell Ellen any of this.

"I just need to know where they are, and if there's anything going on around them right now."

"Anything as in...?"

"I'm not sure. Not a hundred percent. I just need to know if there's anything going on right now that might make you think there's something happening that a hunter should check on."

"Gotcha. And if there is, do I pass it on to someone nearby?"

John had to think about that for a moment. His first response was to say 'no.' "Only if you think someone's in immediate danger. And _don't_ tell anyone I put you on the scent. Otherwise... just let me know what you find out, okay? There's one other thing." He rubbed his ear. It was still ringing a little from where the phone had blasted it that morning. "If you find you're getting any kind of interference, any kind of pushback at _all_ when you start digging, _stop_. Stop and let me know right away."

Something had kept his caller from getting in touch with Sam or Dean, and it had also kept him from telling John anything more than a few snippets.

"John, what is it I should know about this that you're not telling me? And don't you dare play stupid with me."

He thought for a moment. "Ellen, I need to trust you to keep this quiet. Can I trust you to do that?"

The sharp hiss of breath hit almost as hard as the blast earlier that day. "John Winchester, I cannot believe you of all people have the nerve to ask me about trust."

"Damn it, Ellen! This thing might be after Sam!" It took a moment of hard breathing before he could speak again. "I need to know you won't pass something along because I don't want some other hunter to get a wild hair and do something that could get my boys killed or worse!"

There were hunters who would do that. John could name several off the top of his head. If any of those men suspected something had been _done_ to Sam, they wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger.

"I see." There was still a chill in her voice, but he could tell that she did understand. "Well, you can trust me on this. Well, as much as you ever trust anyone, John. Is Sam in trouble? Is he okay? Have you checked in with him?"

John figured she didn't mean the question to hurt. Probably. "No. I haven't. I'm keeping an eye on things as best I can, but I haven't spoken to him in... a while. I don't want him tangling with this thing, or getting anywhere close to it. He knows enough to know what kind of protections to put down if he gets wind of anything."

Sam didn't know much more than that, though. Once John was done here, he was going to haul ass to Palo Alto and spend a week warding the entire campus if he had to.

He told her a few of the signs he'd learned to associate with the demon's travels. "Like I said, I don't think I have a lot of time. This thing has surfaced again, and whatever it's doing, it's speeding up."

"Where are you?"

"Pennsylvania. Chester County." She probably figured he would be checking on a hell gate, but she really didn't need to know which one, exactly. "But I'm heading out by nightfall, gonna go back to Kansas to see if anything's reared its head in Stull. I also need to track down the source of this lead and see if it's legit."

There was a rustle as she shifted the phone to her other shoulder. "What kind of lead? Anything I can help with?"

"That's the other reason I'm calling. That call I told you about came in at o' dark early this morning, and whoever it was started talking about what happened in eighty-three. Ellen, you know I wouldn't ask you about him if I didn't have to, but did Bill know any psychics? My mystery caller claimed to know him."

He was surprised to hear a _huh_ of laughter from Ellen. "You have a right to say his name, dumbass. I'm guessing it wasn't Missouri, 'cause you'd have known who it was. Only other psychic Bill and I ever knew is a bratty kid by the name of Pam Barnes. She's still around, from what I hear. Calling someone up at the asscrack of dawn's about her style."

"No. This was a man. Older. A bit drunk."

"You just described half the people who pass through here," Ellen said.

"Whoever it was said Bill had told him about me. He also knew what alias I was using and way too much details about the hunt I was on. He even told me what I had in my god-damned motel room! Is there anyone you can think of Bill would have known who might be able to find stuff out like that, psychic or not?"

"No one I can think of right off. You sure it was my Bill he meant?"

Yes, but he wasn't about to tell her why he had jumped to that conclusion. He looked down the path that would take him to Devil's Gate and wondered what he was going to find down there.

"Yeah. Well, I've still got a lead I can follow, and if you could look up those kids for me, I'd appreciate it."

"Will do."

Neither one said anything about how he'd do the same for her if it were Jo in trouble. They'd already gone over how he owed her more than he could ever repay.

"Well, I'd better go check on this hell gate. I'll touch base in a couple of days."

"Wait... John, you aren't going after this thing _alone_ , are you?"

"There's no other choice," he said. There was no need to explain why. This wasn't just about him getting Bill or anyone else killed. It was about how he was going to be the one to put an end to the thing that had gone after his family. "Goodbye, Ellen."

He hung up before she could say anything else. If she found anything, he'd hear back from her as soon as she found it. Meanwhile, he had a hell gate to check on.

Even though he had loaded up with salt and anti-possession charms and a whole bundle of nasty tricks, John still felt far too under-prepared when he headed down into the arroyo.

For a park that was in the middle of a city, the Hahamongna Watershed got pretty wild pretty fast. One minute, you could hear a softball game, the next, you were in the kind of place where a kid could disappear forever less than a hundred yards from his school group.

The trail wound down among large oak trees, leading deep into the arroyo. Some of the larger trees looked sort of familiar, but it could have been imagination fitting them into the memory of that day.

That August had been bone-dry, with the stink of not-so-distant fires making it easy to believe that they were coming up on a hell gate.

The arroyo was greener, now, though touched red-gold with autumn. Rains followed by a spate of warmth had sent the weeds and scrub wild, and he sometimes had to clear away vines so he could keep going towards the spillway. It was one of the rare times that reminded him of his year in-country. The plants were different, and it wasn't so stinking hot, but the sense of being surrounded and of being watched and whispered about was as strong now as it was then. Only now there was no Deacon behind him on slack, ready to warn him of a trap.

Ten years ago, Bill had taken point down this same hill, picking his way finicky as a cat through the tinder-dry scrub. John remembered Bill turning to look back at him, flashing a grin like this was just a day goofing around in the woods for no reason other than because. John thought it might have been right about here, maybe about ten minutes before they got to the rock face below the spillway.

For a moment, he could see it: the lanky figure stooping to pass under an oak branch, the cock-sure grin followed by a deadly cold look of warning.

 _Almost there, John_.

John ducked under what might have been the same oak branch and found his footing down what might have been the same treacherous slope that came after, but he wasn't following anyone or anything other than his own memory. There wasn't even a real trail here, although there were signs of broken branches and tamped-down soil if you knew what to look for.

The Devil's Gate spillway, with its famous devil's profile in the rock, had long been rumored to be a gate to hell. Like many rumors of the supernatural, it was partially true. The spillway was just a spillway, although John had to admit that the devil's profile was pretty obvious--if you squinted.

The real gate was in the rock face about thirty or so yards east of the dam. Just past the next tree and down a ways, and he'd be nearly on top of it.

He reached under his jacket for his revolver. Silver rounds had been loaded alternating with shells packed with iron filings and salt. The revolver was a comfort, but part of him would have felt much better if he was wrapping his hand around the hilt of a knife. A good, long knife, metal hilt smooth in his hand... where had that come from? He shook his head and brought his mind back to reality.

Everything around him was green and still. After an early onset to rainy season, the brush and weeds had filled in fast and thick. The sound of distant traffic kept up a constant background hush, enough that if you didn't know to listen for it, you might not notice that there was not a bird or a bug to be heard in this spot.

He drew nearer the rock face, stepping carefully to keep his footing on the scree-covered slope leading down and then up to the cliff. Vines had covered nearly all of the rock except for one patch that was as bare as bleached bone.

Where the vines wouldn't grow, a crack ran deep into the rock like a smile turned sideways. It wasn't a large crack, but it was wide enough that a child could be fed into it by way of payment.

John wondered if the crack was a little wider than when he'd last seen it ten years before, or if it was only his imagination.

Bill had died here. John should have died here. John tried to remember exactly where on the gravel and rockfall it had happened, but he couldn't. The blood and the ash would be long gone by now, but he still looked.

A flash of silver caught his eye. Not real silver, of course, but a bit of stainless steel. Still, it would likely have been discarded as a potentially purifying element, just in case. John stooped down and pried the metal out of the rock and mud. It was a Med Alert bracelet, child-sized. It told whoever found it that Connor Talbot was allergic to bee stings and peanuts.

John tossed the bracelet back to the ground in disgust. That was one missing person case solved, pretty much as expected. Being proven right didn't make him feel any better.

He continued on his way up to the rock face, even though he wasn't sure what other kind of proof he was looking for. Or maybe he was looking for something he could use. Either way, even without the EMF meter, he could tell something big had come through here.

If Missouri was here with him, the pressure and warping of the sheer evil of this place probably would have knocked her unconscious. It was hard enough for him to keep moving forward. It felt like gravity had shifted, that if he didn't lean forward, he would tumble back up the path he'd come down.

Part of him wanted to get out of there, to turn tail and run back to his truck as fast as he could. He wanted to scrub himself raw with rock salt and holy water. It felt like his skin was going to peel itself back from his body out of sheer horror, but he still pressed on.

There was something else here. He wasn't sure what it was, but there was something here other than evil and the one remaining trace of Connor Talbot.

Two more steps. Then another two. And finally he stumbled forward as if he'd missed the last step of a staircase. In this one spot, the sense of evil had lifted enough to be startling.

John flung out his hands to keep from crashing into the vine-covered rock, and they slapped down hard either side of a face staring at him out of the weeds.

Two sunken eyes looked square into his own. Instead of falling back in shock or yelping in surprise, John caught his breath and stepped back slowly.

There was a body beneath those vines, bound by them against the rock. There were so many things wrong with the scene he didn't know where to begin. The body was dessicated, but not decayed. Something, he didn't know what, had kept the animals and insects away, even though the corpse had been there long enough for the vines to grow up and around it. His first thought was that he had found Connor--the body was small enough at first glance--but that couldn't be right.

He pulled the vines away slowly, starting from the top.

Dark hair revealed itself, and despite the shriveled skin and slight frame, this was obviously a grown woman, not a child. When he pulled the vines away from her chest, a blue lanyard started to come with them. He tugged it free to find an ID badge clipped to the end.

He had just found Michelle Dinh, the missing grad student. Her face was stiff and unsmiling in the ID photo, but that just made her look even more familiar.

A gold chain came along with the lanyard, raising up a blood-colored pendant from beneath the woman's shirt. John recognized it--and through it, finally recognized the woman. The red jade circle had a maze-like design he had seen all over the place in Vietnam. He had also seen it in this very place and around this very neck ten years ago.

The _shou_ symbol on the pendant was meant to bring long life and good luck. It hadn't worked.

"I never thought I'd run into you again," he told Michelle by way of asking her pardon as he looked her over for clues. "I hope that goddamn _thing_ wasn't riding you all these years."

A dark stain at the neck of the now-dingy white turtleneck prompted him to stoop down to look under her chin. There was a puncture wound in her throat that told him someone had driven a knife up through the roof of her mouth and into her brain. Like her mouth and eyes, the wound had faint traces of what looked like char around it. Other than that, the body was still unmarked even though Michelle had most likely died eight months ago.

Even after John cleared away most of the vines, she still stuck to the rock wall. According to the police report, Michelle was all of four foot ten to John's six feet and change, but they were standing here eye to eye. Something more than vines was holding her here nearly a foot and a half off the ground. He tried to slide a hand behind her neck, but couldn't. Somehow, she had sunk a full inch back into the rock face, and the place where rock met flesh was glassy smooth under a fine layer of grit.

The only thing he could think was that the rock must have melted behind her and then solidified again, somehow not burning the flesh. When he drew back his hand, his fingers were smudged with ash.

His heart hammered so fast he couldn't tell beat from beat as he pulled the rest of the weeds away from Michelle's body. He kept on coming face-to-face with her and her look of dismayed surprise.

"Looks like the bastard got the drop on you. I guess you couldn't scare him off like you did the last time."

Finding this girl--woman, now--here just confirmed what Connor's bracelet had told him. Things had started again, and once again he was too late.

There was one more thing he needed to know, however.

Michelle's body was mostly clear, but now he worked on the cliff to either side of her. The vines had hidden the burn marks and melting on the cliff. If they hadn't, he would have seen it as soon as he passed that last oak tree. He pulled and pulled, revealing more and more char, not giving up until his hands were raw and he couldn't get a tight enough grip to pull the vines free of the rock.

He picked his way back down from the cliff, then scrambled up the path to where the air didn't feel like it was going to crush his lungs. From this distance, and this angle, the pattern of the burn marks was all too clear.

They spread out from behind Michelle Dinh's shoulders like a pair of giant wings.

John stared at them for a good long time. Then, he sighed.

"Ah, hell... I was afraid of that."

 

 **Now**

John has stopped healing fully after being returned to the hooks between sessions. Skin remains raw, cuts do not mend, and bones hang out of place as the illusion of his body degrades. Still, Alastair seems more and more determined to make him to beg and plead and promise _anything_ to stop the pain.

He is afraid of what will happen when Alastair figures out he has been retreating from his torture sessions, and he tears at himself from the inside when he admits this fear is as great as anything he has ever felt for Sam or for Dean.

One day, Alastair tugs on John's arm before lashing him to the rack and he smiles to hear the scream and to feel that the bones are still in pieces.

In their previous session, Alastair crushed those bones to splinters under lead weights, but John was somewhere else at the time. Now, with no time to prepare, he is entirely present, and jagged bone tearing through flesh makes the world go white with pain.

"It's been a busy day, John, not that you would appreciate that," Alastair says. "So many things to take care of, including you."

There is a sickening pressure in the air. It tells him that Azazel is somewhere nearby, watching.

John wonders if Azazel can possess this semblance of a body, and if so, how much the demon will be able to sift out from his thoughts. Will he see how John is able to hide?

This terrifies him more than Alastair's laughter as he hauls John into a flame-walled hallway and tosses him to a group of his apprentices. They jump at him like starving dogs.

"Do as you please, children," Alastair says. He walks back into his workroom, humming under his breath.

John barely pulls the curtain shut in time before the apprentices drag him off to start their depredations. The one glimpse he gets tells him that the three are still partly human.

 _That is what you are meant to become_ , he hears deep in his mind. _That is what you will_ choose.

 _Never_ , he thinks, but the curtain barely holds. Even with it shielding him, he doesn't know how much longer he can tolerate this, especially now that Alastair has started hinting that soon they will move on to the 'real fun.'

 _You will break eventually_ , the voice informs him. _Or if not, someone else will. This is inevitable_.

Even though it showed him how to shield himself, John is not entirely sure the strange knowledge he has picked up is entirely trustworthy.

 _As trustworthy as yourself_ , it says. There's a smugness that's as repellent as Alastair's bored drawl. He knows this voice. He knows he does.

It sounds like his own.

The voice goes quiet, and John thickens the curtain as best as he can. It doesn't matter what the apprentices are doing to him, because in his new solitude he simply resumes the sort of torture only he can inflict upon himself.

He tortures himself because he thinks of happier times.

In memories that should have been a balm, he can now see the signs of everything that happened. Every golden moment is a nothing more than just another failure.

He tries to look away, but all he can see are the truths that sat in front of him for all these years.

 

 **1975**

For two years after their deaths, Mary refused to talk about her parents. If John touched on the subject in any way, she had this trick of being able to look away from him while still staring him straight in the face. For some reason, it struck him as the sort of thing she might have picked up from Deanna.

She wouldn't talk about her parents, and she wouldn't talk about her life with them. It was as if it was easier for her to pretend that they--and her entire childhood--had simply never existed. She would go quiet and sad every now and then, but for the most part she seemed to have found her footing again.

For those first few months, though, it was like she had gone back to being that weird, quiet kid who used to hang out just outside the playground, fingers hooked through the cyclone fence as she watched the others with unblinking curiosity.

When he was six, John was kind of scared of her (not that he would ever admit it). When he was seven, he just thought she was weird, and it was easy to laugh along when the other kids made fun of her. When he was eight (and, to apply the benefit of hindsight, a budding little jerk), he and Mike Guenther egged each other on and decided it would be fun to see what would happen if they gave the weird kid a little trouble. Maybe she'd cry. Maybe she'd run away.

Or maybe she'd live up to the nickname Mike had come up with for her. That could be funny.

They found out pretty quickly that the weird kid didn't _like_ her new nickname.

John figured she must have got in a lucky shove before he could brace himself, but it felt more like his legs were just plain knocked from under him. Anyhow, he landed hard enough on his butt to have the wind knocked out of him. By the time he was recovered enough to get up, she was gone and Mike was curled up on the ground, blubbering and trying to stanch a bloody nose.

John had been angry and embarrassed, but also kind of curious. What was wrong with that kid, anyway? She'd missed so many days of school that rumor had it she would have to do second grade twice, but she never ever looked sick. Also, the only other person who'd ever gotten the better of Mike Guenther in a fight was a _fourth grader_.

Years later, John was still curious about that strange little girl who'd been able to knock him off his feet, but he knew little more a month before their wedding than he did back then.

Mary had stayed the weird (and scary) little kid all through grade school, but when they started junior high, there was a new building, all sorts of new people and--to all appearances--a new Mary Campbell who was determined to be as normal as possible. Not that any of this mattered to John.

All told, it was easier to ignore her. He did so as much as possible until their junior year, trading snide remarks the few times they had to talk to each other. After that, well...

Now they sat hip-to-hip on the couch in his dad's living room, silent after talking about whether they should rent an apartment for a year or two, or if it would be better to use what they could make from selling the Campbells' house to buy a place of their own right away.

Mary slumped against his side, head on his shoulder. A few minutes ago, when talk of what to do with her parents' house had put her back into that sad, silent space, John put his arm around her. She did her usual thing of tensing up as if the offered comfort was a veiled insult, but after a second she relaxed into him, calm if not content.

Given their history, it still sometimes felt strange to him that he would want to comfort her, so no wonder it might feel odd to her to want to trust him. After all, just three days before the thought inexplicably crossed his mind that he might want to ask her out, she had dumped her lunch tray over his head right in front of everyone. In hindsight, he would admit that he had kind of deserved it at the time.

So, no, this still didn't feel quite natural, but it felt _right_.

"You grew up here, didn't you, John?"

He'd been expecting something like this. For as much as she refused to talk about her own life, she always enjoyed hearing him talk about the minutia of his. Even the stupid, boring, everyday stuff. Sometimes, _especially_ the everyday stuff. She would listen to the most mundane of stories as wide-eyed and breathless as if she were listening to the wildest of adventures.

"In Lawrence?" he said, even though he knew that wasn't what she was asking. "Of course I did. You know that."

She elbowed him hard enough that he winced. "No, dummy. I mean here. This house."

"Yeah." He grinned. "Lots of good memories here." Their first kiss had been right here on this couch. From here, he could see the tree that grew right past his bedroom window. The sight of that tree and the scent and silk of her hair brought with them another good memory, another first.

They'd snuck back into the house after their senior prom. Just getting to go was a big victory for her, and she didn't want the night to end. They'd gone straight up to his room, and that's where they made love for the first time. He remembered watching her get dressed early the next morning, and the way the yellow and lace of her dress shimmied down over her breasts and hips. He also remembered not enjoying the sight as much as he should have because he could hear his dad puttering around downstairs and he was starting to panic about how Mary would get out of there without being noticed.

Then--and this was something he would always remember--she had given him an impish grin and opened the bedroom window. Before he could gather his wits enough to shout at her to stop, she had hopped up on the windowsill and then out into the tree outside. He rushed to the window, but she was already clambering down, all gold and gracefulness. When she got to the bottom, she turned to look up at him. The yellow of her dress was tree-smudged, and her golden hair was every which way, but she was still the most gorgeous thing he'd ever seen as she smiled and blew a kiss at him before waving good bye and running off into the sunrise.

That was a _very_ good memory.

"And some not good ones?" she said after long enough that she had to have been debating how or whether to ask.

"And some not good ones." The downstairs study could still be dangerous territory after all these years, even though his mother's sickbed was long gone. He understood all too well why Mary would rather sell her childhood home than move in there with her new family.

 _Their_ new family. The thought still floored him.

She squeezed his hand with a tenderness that still felt surprising from her. The first time he'd seen a glimpse of that tenderness was over a dozen years ago, a few days after his mom had died. He'd been sitting under the big beech tree by the playground, wanting to be out of the house but not wanting to play or even be with anyone, when the weird kid came up to him.

He didn't know how long she'd been there or what made him look up to see her standing still and quiet. Later, he wouldn't remember what she looked like, but would remember the tree branch that drooped behind her, the sun shining fiery gold through leaves that weren't green even though it was April. He'd never noticed that before, even though he'd seen that tree nearly every single day of his life. Leaves were always green in spring, and that was that.

Mary Campbell was weird and gross and kind of scary, and that was that. Except in this should-have-been-green light she was also very pretty.

"I'm real sorry about your mom," she said, coming right out with it before he could tell her to get lost. All the other kids in his class had made and signed a big card, but they didn't want to talk about it and they didn't want him to be sad. "I really am."

She was the weird, creepy kid with the weird, scary father, and he didn't like her at _all_. Still, he'd believed her when she said he was sorry, and he kind of wished she hadn't run off right after she said it. He remembered her stopping for just a second, so fast that her ponytail whipped round to the front. She looked over her shoulder so quick he almost missed it, and he thought maybe she was going to say something else, and he thought maybe she was afraid he was going to chase after her, but she stayed silent and he stayed put. She ran off, golden hair streaming behind her like a comet's tail.

Now, there was no point in saying he was sorry about her parents' deaths. She knew he was, and she knew he wouldn't run off the way she had so many years ago. So, he said the only thing he could say:

"Yeah, there's bad memories. But you get up and you move on. It hurts, but you can't let it eat you alive."

She thought about that for a moment. John remembered that for a while, that night nearly had eaten her alive, and he had wondered if there would ever be anything more to her again than the girl whose parents had both died on one night.

Eventually, she nodded, and he savored the way her hair brushed across his cheek.

"But you don't want to live here, when we're married," she said, testing the waters for some reason he didn't know.

"No." It was an easy answer even though his dad had offered the house up several times, saying he didn't need such a big place for himself. John suspected he'd sell the place anyway, once John moved out. He'd probably been waiting for a decent excuse for over a decade, now. "I want a place that's _ours_."

"Maybe... maybe someplace that's not Lawrence? Maybe we can just, I don't know, travel for a while? Just pack up the car and go?"

He wasn't surprised by her question, but he was surprised at the sinking feeling that came with it. Lawrence was home, and the thought of living anywhere else--or nowhere else like she was suggesting, rootless and adrift--unsettled him. Vietnam was more than enough adventure for one lifetime.

He remembered her enthusiasm about that VW microbus and her initial disappointment about the Impala, and wondered how long she had been nursing that particular dream.

"Do you have family somewhere else we could visit?" she asked. Maybe she had picked up on his discomfort, or maybe she was hinting that she'd like to hear a story. She did not say anything about any of her own family who might be out there somewhere. While she had been in touch with a distant cousin about some sort of arrangements right after her parents' death, none of Mary's family aside from Deanna's half-brother had come to the funeral.

"Uncle Jack?"

She shoulder-bumped him. "We see him every Sunday! I meant family who aren't in a retirement home in Topeka, dummy. Is there anyone else? Don't you have any family that's not from Kansas?"

"Not really." A growl told him that wasn't good enough of an answer, so he filled in a little bit more.

"Your grandmother was from Saint Louis," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but that hardly counts. I think Uncle Jack said something about her having some family out east, but he has no idea how to get in touch with them."

Mary thought for a moment. "Still, I've never been to St. Louis. It's not that much of a trip, but..."

"No one left out there, from what I hear. Besides, Mary Alice burned a whole bunch of bridges when she ran off to marry my grandfather. Uncle Jack says it was just like Romeo and Juliet, only not as stupid."

Even though he had told her the story a dozen times before, and she had heard it straight from his great-uncle himself, he recognized the spark in her eyes and once again recounted the story of how Uncle Jack and his little brother--John's grandfather--drove out to St. Louis to steal away the fancy debutante whose guardians had all but locked her in a tower when she had declared her love for a hick mechanic from Kansas.

Mary sighed dramatically. "Too bad. That would have been nice, having some rich relatives."

"Not much chance they'd have anything to do with us," he said. It was bad enough that Mary Alice Beaumont had married so far below her station, but marrying outside of the Church was unforgivable. It didn't matter that she went to Mass every morning and dragged her son along with her: more than the breadth of a single state separated her from her family. "Besides, they were kind of strange, from what I understand. Mary Alice very much included."

Mary picked up the bait. "Strange?" she laughed. "Strange how? And why haven't you told me anything about this before?"

She loved stories of the Winchester family foibles. The tale of how his dad and great-uncle tried to help him with his sixth-grade science project had made her laugh until she hyperventilated the first time she heard it. Dad and Uncle Jack had figured that two expert mechanics should be able to handle a simple rocketry project in style, no problem. When he showed her the plaster patch in the kitchen ceiling she had merely laughed until her face was red. It was when he showed her the smaller plaster patch and the scorch marks on his bedroom ceiling one floor above that she finally had trouble breathing.

As he hoped, she was quick to jump on the promise of a story she hadn't heard before.

"Well... I don't know. I'm not sure I want to tell my fiancée what kind of weirdness she's about to marry into."

As expected, she bopped him with a throw pillow.

"Fine, fine," he laughed. "I'll tell."

He did his best to tell it the way Uncle Jack would, heavy on the romantic and the absurd. He started with the way Mary Alice was a legend even before the Sunday morning when the Winchester brothers roared into town in their Ford truck with a cloche-hatted young woman sitting prim and proper on a steamer trunk in the back as if she were the Queen of England sitting on a velvet cushion in a golden carriage.

Everything about her was remarked upon, from her scandalously red dress to the fact that Jimmy Winchester didn't carry his new bride over the threshold like he ought. No, he and his brother Jack had been tasked with lugging that steamer trunk into the house while Mary Alice swanned along behind them.

Everything Mary Alice Beaumont owned was in that fancy French trunk, people said, even though she had lived in a grand house in St. Louis. An orphaned heiress, people said, raised by a wicked aunt and uncle who were quick to disown the girl and keep her money when she eloped. She was just as quick to disown them in return, dropping the 'Beaumont' completely and going simply by Mary Alice Winchester. Shocking, by the standards of the time.

"There were all kinds of rumors about something having happened to her parents when she was a girl, something she never would talk about," he continued, but the eagerness in Mary's eyes turned to something else before he realized what kind of mess he'd stepped in. That part of the story, he'd skip. It wasn't all that important.

"Anyway," he said quickly, "the truth was, her aunt and uncle wanted her back, and I don't think it was about the money. However they had things arranged, they didn't lose as much as most in the Depression. Uncle Jack swears up and down that one day, less than a week after my dad was born, a couple of Catholic priests showed up and insisted on talking to my grandmother. He's pretty sure her family sent them."

Mary's interest had returned but there was still a guarded look to her. "Priests? Why priests?"

John shrugged. "Don't know. Uncle Jack--he tells this so much better than I do--says he and my grandfather tried to eavesdrop, but even though there was lots of shouting, they couldn't tell what was going on. He did say that the very next Sunday, she drove out to St. John the Evangelist, and got my dad baptized on the spot, no fuss, no argument, just like she'd never left the church."

Mary boggled. "Your dad. George Winchester. _Baptized?_ You're joking, right?"

John could understand her surprise. His dad would only ever set foot in a church for weddings and funerals, and sometimes not even then when he thought he could get away with showing up at the Elks Lodge for the food and drink once the boring parts were over.

"Not at all. He'll say he's worn it all off and then some by now, though. It was a huge scandal at the time. Nearly everyone in town went to the Baptist church, including the Winchester family. But then, after my dad was born, Mary Alice dragged him all the way across town to St. John's every single Sunday until the day she died."

Mary frowned. "Well, I don't think that's strange at all. If that's what she was used to growing up, and she didn't have any other family--"

"I haven't gotten to the strange part yet, although I'd say getting a couple of priests to drive all the way across Missouri was kind of out there. Anyhow, Uncle Jack said that my grandfather didn't care one bit about the neighborhood gossip. He was crazy in love with Mary Alice, and had been ever since they met."

Mary nodded. Uncle Jack had told that story so many times that John could see it like a movie playing in his head. By now, Mary probably could, too. Jack and Jimmy Winchester had driven into the city one bitterly cold and snowy January weekend to catch a show at the Folly. One their way to the show, they'd passed by a car with its hood folded back. It wasn't just some old broken-down jalopy. It was a fine car, the color of sweet cream, with a silver angel perched on her front. Fine or not, the car wasn't going anywhere soon, and the chauffeur glared at the engine as if his disdain alone was enough to fix it.

The Winchesters had stopped to help, of course. Jack wanted to be the gallant rescuer of the three beautiful young ladies sitting in the back of the car, and Jimmy wanted to get his hands on the guts of a genuine Rolls Phantom.

That had changed the moment Mary Alice Beaumont and James Winchester locked eyes. According to Uncle Jack, there was a sound like the heavens opening up and a choir of angels breaking out in a love song. He even swore that he heard the _zing_ of Cupid's bowstring right at that very moment.

John used to think the whole thing was a bunch of bull, but then he fell in love with Mary Campbell, and Uncle Jack savored the 'I told you so' for weeks.

"Eventually, Mary Alice started getting letters from her uncle, but for the most part she burned them unopened. She did read a few of them, but it would always put her in the sort of mood where she'd slam her bedroom door and not come out for days."

Mary was fully intrigued again. "What did they want? Did anyone ever find out?"

"Well, one day Uncle Jack was rummaging through Mary Alice's papers by accident--"

Mary smirked. Even with John doing the storytelling, she could no doubt imagine Uncle Jack's air of perfect innocence.

"--and he found a bundle of letters that she'd saved. Most of the letters she'd kept were from her cousin Freddy. Uncle Jack says she always wrote him back, but sent the letters to him at school so his folks wouldn't know." John shrugged. "From the sound of things, he was the only thing about her old life that she missed. Anyhow, she did keep one letter from her uncle--just one."

He paused for a moment, waiting for Mary to nod for him to go on, go on already.

"Uncle Jack said that Mary Alice's uncle had written a five-page letter all about the war, and the family duty and so on and so on. He said the whole thing was hair-curling, but also kind of silly. 'Like something out of a dime novel,' he'd say."

"World War Two?" Mary asked. It was a good guess, given that John's grandfather had fought in the Pacific, and had done a long and harrowing stint in a Japanese POW camp.

"This was in 1934." John raised his eyebrows to emphasize the strangeness of the point.

"Okay, then. Spanish Civil War?" Mary suggested brightly. She had actually read all of the Hemingway he skipped and skimmed in English class.

"Wrong year," John pointed out with well-earned smugness. While she had been a better student all-round, he had always done better than she had in history. "And it's not like they would have had a dog in that particular hunt. I have no idea what they were talking about?"

"Did they keep sending letters?"

He shrugged. "Off and on. But Mary Alice started getting more and more eccentric around then. I think that's why Uncle Jack went through her stuff, trying to find out what was going on. Dad won't talk much about it, and I wouldn't bring it up with him if I were you, but Uncle Jack remembers her arguing with my grandfather about making Dad wear saints' medals and crap like that. There were even a few times she would drag him out of school in the middle of the day and take him to Mass."

Mary gave him a half-smile, but it seemed a little forced. "Wow. No wonder you guys never go to church."

"Waste of a perfectly good Sunday," John said, parroting his dad. He decided not to tell the story of how Mary Alice had walloped his dad good the one Sunday when he had snuck off at the crack of dawn in the hopes of avoiding hours and hours of church.

Not all of Uncle Jack's stories were funny. There were some he only told after he'd had a few, and when he told them, they always sounded more like questions than stories. Unfortunately, no one ever seemed to know the answers to those questions.

"According to Uncle Jack, by the time Dad was eight, he could speak almost perfect Latin."

"Perfect Latin?" Mary's voice was a little shaky, but John couldn't put a finger on why. Maybe it was just that she found the whole thing too ridiculous to believe. "At age _eight_? Really?"

"He claims not to remember a word of it, but you know Uncle Jack--he won't let the truth get in the way of a good story. Still, Mary Alice made him learn all these different prayers like his life depended on it. It got worse after my grandfather went off to the war."

"Worse how?" she asked, and somehow this had turned from just another family story into something inexplicably more serious and urgent.

"She got real superstitious--and angry. She always used to be quick-tempered, but Uncle Jack said this was different. One was fiery, this was something different. He said it was like she was expecting Hitler's goons to come marching into Lawrence and she was planning to fight them all off by herself with her bare hands."

Uncle Jack still had a couple of pictures of Mary Alice at his apartment at the retirement community. One was her and Grandpa Jimmy's wedding photo. The other was of her sitting on that infamous steamer trunk, ankles brazenly crossed, wearing a short dress and an I-dare-you smile. John always thought she looked like someone who would try to take on an army, just to show she could do it.

John always suspected that Uncle Jack had been more than a little in love with Mary Alice himself, but John knew he also had loved his little brother more than anything.

"She was absolutely fixated on the idea that Hitler was using some kind of black magic to fight the war." John said. He was starting to think that maybe he'd be better off changing the subject, but he couldn't think a way to do so without being obvious about it. "Uncle Jack said that was the only good thing about being 4F'd for a bad heart--being able to stay behind and keep an eye on Mary Alice and my dad."

Even though something about the story was getting under her skin, Mary wanted to hear more about Mary Alice. "There's something else, isn't there, John? Your dad never talks about his mother. What happened to her?"

"Well, she already had a reputation for being strange just because she was Catholic. That's how it was around here, back then. Then someone told Uncle Jack they'd seen her carving what looked like hobo sign on the trees around the house--you know,stars and symbols and stuff. He didn't believe it at first, but he went over to check, and there they were. Then, right after my grandfather shipped off for the Pacific, Uncle Jack caught her pouring a circle of salt all the way around the house. She just about ripped his head off when he started scuffing it away."

" _What?_ " Mary exclaimed as if this was the most shocking thing she had ever heard in her life.

"Hey, you asked! Anyhow, it didn't take long for her to get a reputation for being _really_ strange. Uncle Jack had to do a lot of damage control when other parents wouldn't let their kids play with my dad. He was pretty well-liked, so Dad didn't have it too badly, but there was nothing he could do to keep people from talking about Mary Alice. She even had, um, a... sort of nickname around town."

A childhood memory reared up and smacked him in the face just a little too late.

"Let me guess," Mary said with a tight little smile. "'Scary Mary,' right?"

He opened and closed his mouth a few times before he could speak. His face felt red-hot. "I'm--"

"Don't apologize," she said. Her voice was utterly flat. A gap had opened wide between them in the past couple of minutes and John didn't know what to do about it. "We were kids. It didn't mean anything."

"It was Mike's idea, if that helps," he said, trying to make light of things. Then, more seriously: "Just being kids was no excuse, we--"

Mary stood up. "I'm not mad at you, John! I'm not. It's just..." She flapped her hands as if trying to catch the words that wouldn't come to her. "Oh, I never should have asked you about her!"

She bolted to her feet and ran out. John knew better than to try to stop her.

A moment later, his dad came back in from the garage. Mary must have run right past him. He raised an eyebrow and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Might want to do something about that, son."

John shook his head. "It's--it'll be okay, Dad. I told her something that set off a bad memory." His dad would assume it was about Mary's parents. "She'll want to be alone."

His dad stared down at him consideringly for a moment. "Give her five minutes, son, then go looking. Then, if she wants to be alone, then by gum let her alone. But make damned sure she _knows_ you went looking for her. Understand?"

John swallowed hard. He felt like he was fourteen again. "Yessir."

His dad disappeared into the kitchen. John heard the sound of the fridge and then a beer opening, and then the _click-click-click_ of the kitchen timer being set.

Five minutes later it went off.

John got in the Impala and went looking. Mary couldn't have gone far in just five minutes on foot, but there were any number of places she could have gone, and he didn't want to lose too much time if he took off in one direction and she went in another.

It took him over an hour to find her.

She was at the playground. None of the equipment was the same, and the old beech tree was bigger and carved with more initials (theirs included), but it was still the same place they had played when they were kids. Well, John had played there, and Mary had stood behind the fence with her fingers hooked through the wire, watching and dreaming.

Mary sat on a bench with her back to the road, and he saw her stiffen at the sound of the Impala's motor. Still, when he got out of the car, he saw she had scooted to one end of the bench rather than sitting square in the middle.

He sat down next to her, but not _right_ next to her.

"I'm here," he said.

She said nothing, not even 'get lost.'

"I was a real little shit when I was a kid, wasn't I?"

"It's okay," she said even though it wasn't. "I was pretty awful to you, too."

"I deserved it most of the time."

"Not all of the time." There was an evil smirk. "Remember your locker in tenth grade?"

He covered his face with his hands and slumped down on the bench. "How could I ever forget?" Then, he sat up straight again. Mary was looking at something that was nowhere in front of them. "Look, whatever I did, I'm sorry."

She let out a short, sharp breath, and her mouth set in a thin line. "You know I hate it when you do that, John! If you don't know what you did, how can you be sorry? Anyhow, it wasn't your fault. I should have known better. You said up front that she was..." She shook her head, eyes closed. "I should have known better."

She went quiet again.

"I wasn't trying to apologize," he explained, forcing himself to be patient and not to snap at her. "I was trying to say that I was sorry I hurt you, even if I didn't know how. I'd never do something to hurt you if I could avoid it. I would do _anything_ to not hurt you."

"I know that," she said, and it was a quiet end to an argument that never really had a chance to start.

"You okay, or do you want me to bug off?"

"Stay," she said, and although she didn't move any closer, she _felt_ closer. She leaned forward, turning to look at him. "I want you to tell me the rest of her story. What happened to her?"

He was tempted to argue the point or play dumb, but the steel in Mary's voice told him she _needed_ to hear this.

"There's not much left to tell," he said. "One morning, she simply left without saying a word. This was when my grandfather was stuck in a Japanese POW camp, so she left my dad all alone. Uncle Jack was frantic when he found out. He went searching everywhere, but there was no sign of her. Their car was still in the driveway, and none of the bus drivers remembered seeing her. She had just vanished."

He thought of that photo, of a grinning woman who looked as if she was daring any and all comers to try and get the better of her. Uncle Jack had kept it close, for all these years.

"About a week after she vanished, he got a call from the police or someone. Mary Alice made it all the way back to St. Louis somehow, and had turned up dead at the church her family used to go to. Her aunt and uncle must have paid good money to keep it out of the papers, because other than that call, no one else in Lawrence ever heard a word of what happened to her. Uncle Jack saw to that. I think he tried to find out more about what happened to her, but if he found anything, he never told me. As for my grandfather, well... he died long before I was born, just a year after he came back from the war."

Mary didn't press for details, and John didn't provide them. They weren't pretty. Coming home to a dead wife and a son who barely recognized him finished the work the malaria and his captors had begun. James Winchester had simply dwindled away without a fight in a hospital ward, leaving his brother Jack to raise his boy all by himself.

"Thank you," Mary said. Her eyes were closed, and she smiled tightly. She didn't speak for a moment, but John suspected she had more to say. "That poor woman... 'Mary Alice Winchester.'" Each syllable came out with beautiful precision.

"I kind of wish she'd been named Ethel or something," John grumbled.

Mary got it without him needing to explain. "Your dad turned out okay, didn't he?"

"I'd say so."

She opened her eyes and looked at him, smiling sadly. "And _you_ turned out okay."

He snorted with laughter. "That depends on who you ask."

She looked away again. "I'm sorry. That stupid nickname you and Mike came up with had nothing to do with why I ran. It's just that what I grew up with... You're not the only one with that kind of family history. Mine was just a little closer by than yours."

He reached over and put his hand over hers. She turned her hand over so their fingers could lace together.

"I think I should bake your dad a cake or something. For turning out okay. And for raising you to be who you are."

When he squeezed her hand, she squeezed back in return. He had known that while Mary had loved her parents, all was not well in the Campbell home. Mary had never shared too many details, though. All he knew is that she had spent years watching through wire and wishing she could be like all the other kids. Maybe later she would tell him more, but not now.

"I'm looking forward to getting married," she said. "To being a mom."

"You'll be a good one."

She turned and gave him one of those glorious, golden smiles. "Maybe I will be, after all." Then, she grew serious again, and he felt something clench in his stomach. "John?"

"Yes?"

"The other day, I saw a house for sale. Do you want to go and look at it tomorrow?"

"Huh? Uh, sure. I'd love to."

"I remember Mom..." She swallowed hard. "We always drove past it on the way home from the grocery store. Mom always said she thought it was a cute little house."

He leaned over and kissed her.

The next day, they decided to put an offer on the house just ten minutes after walking in the front door.

Even before they had finished moving in, Mary went and hung a picture at the head of the stairs. John watched her, wondering why she'd hang something in a hallway they intended to repaint as soon as they could.

She stood back to admire her handiwork and he recognized his grandparents' wedding photo. Uncle Jack must have given it to her when they visited the day before.

She touched the photo gently. "We Mary Winchesters need to stick together. Everything will turn out okay. You'll see. I'll make sure of that."

When she turned and saw John at the foot of the stairs, she yelped in surprise, then smiled and ran down to meet him. She all but jumped into his arms, and he spun her around a couple of times and danced her into the kitchen, where they began the oh-so-romantic work of unpacking the dishes.

They were making a home of their own, and even unfinished, it was everything he ever could have wanted.


	3. Part Three

**1983**

Three weeks had gone by, and the few things John had been able to salvage from the fire still sat in boxes at the garage. Mike said he didn't mind them staying there as long as John wanted.

"It's not like they're taking up a whole lot of space," he said casually. It was almost funny how pale he went when he realized just what it was he'd said. Almost, but not quite.

What he'd said was true. Nearly all that was left of the home John and Mary had built together fit neatly into eleven boxes at the back of one of the service bays. The rest of it was in the trunk of the Impala.

"Anyhow," Mike said, changing the subject, "Katie wants you and the boys to come for Thanksgiving."

John started to protest--he didn't feel like celebrating, and the boys were too young to know they were missing anything--but Mike narrowed his eyes in a way that told John the point was not at all negotiable.

John supposed it would be better than hanging around the efficiency apartment with no one but the boys and the football game for company.

He supposed wrong. Katie Guenther had meant well, but it didn't take long for him to realize he would have been better off drinking himself to sleep alone in front of the game than sitting here surrounded by reminders of everything he had lost.

Dean sat right next to him, using a phone book as a booster seat and not eating. Last year, he had shoveled spoonful after spoonful of stuffing into his mouth to the point where Uncle Jack finally asked John if the boy was getting paid by the bite.

Back then, John had known that it would likely be Uncle Jack's last Thanksgiving and that there was little chance of him making it to Christmas, so he had deliberately anchored each moment, each phrase, every burst of laughter, deep in his memory.

He had never imagined it would be Mary's last Thanksgiving, too.

John remembered how she sat like a queen in the rocking chair he had brought down to the kitchen for her. She had issued orders from her 'throne' and watched smugly as John scurried around following all her instructions--most of which seemed to involve doing three different things at the stove all at the same time. Uncle Jack sat right beside her in his wheelchair, cheerfully heckling John's inept attempts at domesticity. Beneath it all, Dean kept up a running prattle, asking Uncle Jack about his oxygen tank and if he could try it, or when he'd be able to play with his new baby brother or sister and why Mommy had to sit down and be still all the time.

Dean said nothing, now, and his silence was loud in the teasing between Mike and his dad, and in the sisterly sniping between Mike's two little girls.

John wasn't saying much, either, except when he asked Mike to pass the rolls, or answered yet another one of Katie's questions.

Mike cast him a worried glance, and John shook his head.

"Hey, the game starts in twenty," Mike announced. "Katie, you don't mind if us guys have dessert in the den, do you?"

Katie looked like she minded very much, but Mike's mouth hardened into a line that said this had nothing to do with avoiding dishes or rooting against the Cowboys.

A beer and a game he didn't give a shit about would be better than sitting around a dining room table with someone else's family. Sam was sacked out upstairs, and while Dean was sitting right next to John, he was so silent he might as well have not been there at all.

At least the kid finally started eating, picking away at the stuffing and ignoring the green bean casserole and the turkey. John figured he could endure twenty more minutes of this holiday hell.

Dean eventually finished his stuffing, then made his way methodically through the turkey. The green beans were considered then dismissed with a squinched look. Dean cast a longing glance at the dish of stuffing. He still didn't say a word. It had been three weeks. Three weeks and not a single word.

"Take a bite of your green beans, honey, and then you can have some more stuffing," Katie said.

Dean looked up at John as if to ask 'do I have to?' and it took every ounce of self-control he had not to tell Katie to mind her own fucking business. She wasn't Dean's mother.

While Dean poked at the beans, steeling himself for the task, John tried to ignore the laughter as Mike's eight-year-old teased him about his beer gut and he retaliated--with an eager assist from the younger girl--by teasing her about her 'boyfriend.'

What was it like, having something to laugh about? It had only been three weeks, but he couldn't remember.

Some other time, he might have laughed at the look of utter disgust on Dean's face as he choked down the promised bite of overcooked green beans and what Mary called (used to call) 'cream of crud.' Dean shuddered theatrically, then pointed at the stuffing with a look of triumph.

Katie picked it up the dish and started to hand it to John, but John shook his head.

"What do you say, Dean?" It might not work, but just maybe it would. If it did, it might redeem the holiday.

Dean stared up at him as if he'd just spoken in fluent Martian.

"You say 'please,' Dean. Remember?"

Just one word. Just one miserable word. This silence couldn't go on forever. He wouldn't let it.

Dean stared at him for a moment longer, then turned to look pleadingly at Katie. It was exactly what he did whenever he thought Mary might be easier on him than John.

"Oh, let the boy have seconds, John. It's a holiday, after all," Katie said. "You have to give him a little slack. He still misses his--"

"What do you say, Dean?" John repeated even more firmly, drowning out what Katie was about to say.

Dean turned away so hard he all but curled up like a pill bug.

"'Please may I have some stuffing, Mrs. Guenther.' Then you can have some." He spoke as sternly as he could; there would be no negotiation.

Katie held out her hand. "Give me his plate, John." She did not say please. Mike told her to stay out of it, but she paid him no mind. "If he doesn't want to talk, he doesn't want to talk."

"He hasn't spoken in three weeks. He's got to talk sometime, and it's going to be now." What he was saying made no sense, everything in him knew that, but right now he needed to hear Dean say something, anything, it didn't matter what or why or how or what he had to do to get it. "Say 'please,' Dean."

If Dean heard him, he showed no sign of it. John felt his face growing hot, but he didn't know how to stop it and he didn't much care.

"Dean, what did I just tell you?"

His heart skipped a beat when he heard Dean make a soft sound. It was too soft, though. It could have been anything.

"I can't hear you, Dean."

The sound came again, followed by a hiccup. Then Katie got to her feet, and she scooped Dean out of his chair, knocking the phone book to the floor.

Dean buried his face in the crook of her shoulder, and the sobs he'd been trying to hold in finally burst out as he wrapped his arms tight around her neck. Katie gave John a glare that should have poisoned him on the spot.

Mike said something about the game starting in a few, but John was already on his way to the door. He slammed it behind him just as he heard Dean's sobs rise to a wail.

He knew he'd fucked up and fucked up big, but was it too much to ask to have one thing be back to the way it was before? Just one thing. Just one miserable word. Just one thing that was normal. That's all. He started walking with no idea of where he meant to go. The light drizzle cooled him off, but not enough.

Mary would be beyond pissed at him for how he'd acted, but Mary wasn't here and never would be again, so what the fuck did it matter? The thought nearly brought out a sob of his own, but it turned into a snarl and he punched the next mailbox he passed hard enough to skin his knuckles and set the mailbox off-kilter on its post.

He'd lost Mary, so was it so fucking wrong that he wanted to make sure he wasn't losing Dean, too? Sometimes, it felt like the last time he'd seen Dean was when the two of them went out to play catch that last night.

 _"You're saying Dean saw what happened?"_

Deacon's question had gnawed at John for nearly three weeks now. Dean had been right there in the hallway, that night. John had no idea how long he'd been there, or how much he'd seen.

(His mother, bleeding from a gash in her belly, the blood dripping down onto Sam's face...)

But that wasn't real, and therefore Dean couldn't have seen a god-damned thing.

John kept walking, and the drizzle kept shifting between mist and honest rain just as his thoughts shifted between what he remembered and what he knew must have happened.

 _"The way you keep talking, it sounds to me like you really saw something. You ever think that maybe you did?"_

He did, but he didn't want to. If he really saw something, then all it meant was that he was crazy. Again, he saw that flash of red and a woman screaming as he put his hand on her shoulder.

What had Dean seen at the nursery door? Something cold and heavy twisted deep in John's gut. Was there a reason Dean wasn't speaking, or was there a reason why Dean wasn't speaking to _him_? Why he'd clung to Katie Guenther like he was terrified out of his wits?

John had to stop and fight to keep his balance as he remembered what he'd asked Deacon. Had he done something, in-country? Maybe that was the wrong question.

Had he done something _that night?_

Was there a reason why his memory was so fucked up?

He doubled over and threw up nearly all of his Thanksgiving dinner right in front of someone's mailbox.

 _"I don't think you're a killer, and I don't think you're crazy."_

John wiped his mouth on his sleeve and took a couple of deep breaths before straightening back up. He never would have done anything to hurt Mary. He knew that. It was the only thing in all of this he knew for certain.

 _"I think maybe you saw something."_

The rain fell lightly but steadily now. It was coming on twilight, but he could still see where he was. The charred wreck of a house stood dark against the slate-grey sky. He had autopiloted all the way home and thrown up in front of his own mailbox.

The psychologist he had visited (and stormed out on during their third and last session) no doubt would have asked some bullshit question about why he did that, but John didn't need to fork over fifty bucks to some quack to figure out what was going on.

He looked at the home that no longer was, and thought about how things _should_ have been tonight. "Happy fucking Thanksgiving," he muttered.

He expected bleak silence and the slow patter of rain in response.

What he got was an indignant, "Watch your language, John Winchester! You'd better not be using those kinds of words in front of your boys!"

John was too astounded to say anything at first. He turned to see a stern, stout black woman watching him from the street. His first and completely irrelevant thought was that her bright red raincoat and sunflower-patterned umbrella didn't really fit with the grim November dusk.

He gathered his wits. "Excuse me, but who the hell are you, and how the hell do you know my name?"

She gave him a 'tch! Language!' by way of response then marched right past him towards the remains of his house. She couldn't have been that much older than him, but she still felt free to scold him like he was a child.

"Of course I know your name. You called me, a few days after the fire," she said.

"What... no I didn't!" He couldn't remember much about the days following the fire, but he was pretty certain he hadn't called this woman.

"Oh, yes you did!" she retorted, and it was so ridiculously childish he almost laughed. "You even woke me up in the middle of a nap! You called me then, just like you called me now, wanting to find out what really happened that night."

"I don't even know your name! So how would I be able to look up your number and call you?" This was beyond ridiculous. He should go back to the Guenthers and get the boys.

"Number? Please. You didn't call me on the phone, John. You simply... _cried out_ , and I heard you just as clear as if you'd been standing right next to me. If you hadn't called just now, I'd have been just as happy to stay home where it's warm and dry and I have a nice Thanksgiving supper waiting for me." She spoke firmly, but she sounded out of breath. "Almost as nice as that supper you walked out on, I'd say. I never can get the white meat not to come out dry as a bone, though."

John wasn't used to his head reeling like this if he hadn't been drinking.

"I have to say, I've been wanting to talk to you ever since you called me that first time, but what were you _thinking_ , just now, leaving your little boy like that? Did you know he's probably crying his poor little head off right now because he thinks he did something to make his daddy mad?"

If John didn't feel like an total shit already, that would have finished the job. "Okay... did Katie call and tell you to come after me?"

The woman shook her head. "No. Like I said, I've been meaning to speak to you for a while, now, but it just wasn't the time." She looked at the house, but in a way that suggested she was trying to see what was just beyond it. "Terrible, what happened here that night."

It sounded more like a judgement than a platitude. All John could do was nod in mute agreement.

"No, not just terrible," she said. " _Evil_. But you know that already. You saw it for yourself. What that thing did to your wife. And, since you're about to ask me who I am again--and I _told_ you to watch your language, boy--my name is Missouri Moseley."

She reached into her handbag and pulled out a business card. It gave her name in prim cursive. Beneath that, in a more businesslike typeface, it said PSYCHIC.

"Don't throw that out, John. I know what you're thinking."

"Right. Because you're a psychic." He almost tossed the card into the gutter, just because, but he slipped it into his pocket instead.

"That, too."

He glowered at her, but she seemed unimpressed. "Okay, Mrs--"

"Miss."

" _Miss_ Mosely, then. What happened here?" He loomed over her and pointed at the house. "You said it was evil, but what _was_ it? Tell me that."

"I'm not entirely sure of that." Rather than being hesitant, it came across in a way that made John think she was looking down at him rather than the other way around. "When I say it was evil, I'm saying that whatever it was, was _made_ of evil. The house still stinks of it, and it's jumbling up everything inside of it so that I can't pick out anything sensible from all the mess."

"Figures." He turned and started to walk away. He was done talking to this crazy woman, even if she did know things she shouldn't have known. Things that weren't true.

"What was it that friend of yours said?" she called out after him. "That you're not a killer and you're not crazy? You were thinking that just a minute ago, weren't you?"

He stopped, but he didn't turn around.

"He's right, you know. You're not a killer, but you are crazy if you could think for even one second that you ever could have killed your Mary. You loved her. You still do. You love her so much it _shines_."

John closed his eyes. He did not trust himself to speak.

"But that shine will darken and turn into something else if you're not careful. You love that boy of yours, but what you did to him just now..."

He wasn't psychic, but he knew she was shaking her head in disgust.

"You didn't kill Mary, but something did, and it's something that needs to be stopped. If you could feel what I feel, standing here, you'd know it won't stop at just one woman to get whatever it is it wants."

This was crazy. She was crazy. Maybe he was, too. His mind told him one thing, and his memories told him something else. More than one something else, sometimes.

How was he supposed to tell what was true, and what was not?

Finally, he faced her again. Missouri looked ridiculous in her red raincoat and standing under that too-bright umbrella, but at the same time she didn't seem ridiculous at all.

"Who is she?" he asked. "If you're really a psychic, you'll know who I'm talking about."

If it hadn't been for the red of her raincoat, he might not have thought of it.

"That woman who isn't your wife? The other one you saw burn up right in front of you?"

John held his breath.

"I can see her, but it's just a flicker, and to be honest I'm not sure I should look any closer than that right now. This isn't the best place to talk," she said, and he thought he saw her cast a quick glance at the house. "Call me, when you're ready to talk. You're not, now, but you wouldn't be when it counts if I hadn't come to you now. Now go on back to your friends' house and be a good daddy to those sweet little boys of yours."

The thought made his stomach churn with guilt, and he felt what little was left of Katie's dinner go sour. He nodded, mumbled a good night, and turned to leave. In a few minutes, this would all feel like just another bad dream in a long string of bad dreams.

"John?"

He looked over his shoulder, but said nothing.

"There is one thing I can tell you about that woman. That bit of red you keep seeing, over and over?"

He motioned for her to go on even though he really didn't want to hear what she had to say.

"It's hair. Whoever she was, that poor thing had the reddest hair I've ever seen in my life."

John nodded something that wasn't thanks, then headed back to a place that wasn't home. It wasn't home, but his boys were there, and that was all that really mattered.

It was all he had.

Katie gave him a _look_ when he got back, but it was tempered with sympathy. "I put Dean to bed upstairs with Sammy. Did you want to leave them here tonight?"

He shrugged, and followed Katie upstairs to check on his boys. He looked into the room, and although the two boys were curled up together in the Guenthers' old crib, he could tell Dean wasn't asleep.

Katie sighed. "Would you look at that? I put Dean in his own bed. I have no idea how on earth he managed to climb in there without me hearing," she said, but John was not at all surprised. She backed quietly out of the room, leaving John to be with his boys.

He reached down and stroked Dean's hair. It was still almost as blond as Mary's but it was getting darker and darker all the time.

 _"Reddest hair I've ever seen in my life."_

John couldn't think of who it could be. That was because it couldn't be anyone. It was just his imagination.

He could see it clearly now, that red hair. Red that turned to black as it was consumed by fire. It was a wonder that he couldn't see it for what it was before.

He told himself it didn't mean anything.

Dean shifted and looked up at John. There was a flash of fear that broke John's heart, but then Dean reached up to him, silently asking to be picked up.

He didn't even need to say 'please' for John to scoop him up and hold him close. He held Dean like that for a long time, and when there was a faint, hesitant 'Daddy?' John just held him even closer, not saying a word.

When John finally went back downstairs, Mike handed him a drink. And another one. And a third. After a while, John no longer saw red hair and flame, or heard a stern, breathy voice telling him things that couldn't be true. That was fine by him. He wanted to forget everything that happened that night. As far as he was concerned, this Thanksgiving and all Thanksgivings to follow could go straight to hell.

For that one night, he was able to forget, but from time to time in the days that followed, he took out Missouri Moseley's card and thought about calling. He even picked up the phone a few times.

Once, he actually dialed her number, but he was drunk and hung up in the middle of the first ring.

 

 **2006**

He had lost track of how many times Dean had tried to call him over the past three months.

After leaving Pasadena, John had only two days of quiet before Dean realized he wasn't calling back. Then, the phone rang upwards of three times a day. On Halloween day, Dean called no less than five times, leaving a message each time.

The first message he left that day was nonchalant, as if he didn't care if John called him back or not. The next was terse, the third angry, the fourth worried, and the fifth downright pleading.

John erased all but the first one. That was the only one that really sounded like Dean, and in the following weeks he found himself playing it over and over for no good reason.

He did almost call back when Dean let slip in a message that he'd taken Sam with him to Jericho. It took John a while to figure out if he was worried or relieved. Worried, because despite everything, Sam was relatively safe at Stanford. Relieved, because it meant Dean was looking after Sam and Sam was looking after Dean. It also meant that the big thunderstorm and cold front that rolled through Palo Alto on the first of November was probably no more than just a storm. If Dean hadn't called him right after John saw the weather report, John would have headed straight out to Palo Alto.

Sam and Dean being together didn't mean John wouldn't worry, but it meant he didn't have to worry as _much_. He could concentrate on tracking down this demon and finding a way to kill it.

Then there was the question of _why_ the demon was sowing crops of children and harvesting them with fire.

After a while, his phone stopped ringing so often. Instead of calling three times a day, Dean called once or twice a week, usually at an odd hour of the morning. John wasn't sure if the boy was drunk or simply trying to see if he could catch John in an unguarded moment.

Once this was over, and if he was still alive at the end of it, he would find his boys. He would explain everything. But not now. Not for a while, yet.

There was a message on his phone from Dean right now, but he would listen to it later. He had other things to be concerned about at the moment--such as being overheard.

The stone walls of St. Mary's Convent in Ilchester were thick, and the place had been long abandoned, but the shouts and screams and shattered furniture had been _very_ loud.

All that was over, now. Even though the vestry was only lit by a Coleman lantern, the room seemed much less dark than it had a few moments ago.

"I don't... I don't understand."

John could barely make out the man's words. He sagged against his ropes, and John would have untied him if the ropes weren't the only thing holding him upright in the chair. The demon had not been kind to its meatsuit.

"No one does, Dwayne," John said, using the man's name for the first time now that it was truly Dwayne Pulaski he was talking to. He went to Dwayne's side, no longer worrying about scuffing the lines of the devil's trap chalked around the chair. The demon was gone, sent back to Hell where it belonged.

"What happened?" It was getting even harder to understand what Dwayne was saying. Given his injuries, he probably didn't have long. John kept pressure on the sucking wound in his chest, but the only thing it did was buy the poor bastard a few more minutes. "I remember. I killed my mom! Oh, god. I remember it. How could I--"

"It wasn't you," John said shortly. The information wouldn't be much comfort, so he didn't try to soften it. "That thing inside of you used you and it made sure you'd remember."

John couldn't say if that was worse or better than being made to forget. Remembering, you at least wouldn't have any questions or doubts.

"But you killed it."

"Yes," John lied. The exorcism had simply driven the demon away, but at least this kid could die thinking that everything had been set right.

Dwayne's mouth and chin were stained with his own blood. His mother's blood covered his Ravens hoodie.

"And it was going to kill you," he told John. "It wanted me to kill you slow."

"Me, specifically? It had you hunting me?" John asked. Dwayne's faint 'yes' was answered with a feral grin.

This was the fifth demon possession he had encountered in the last two months. Things were escalating, and if he was right, there were more demon possessions in the past five months than there had been than in the past ten years altogether. If this continued, 2006 would make what happened in 1995 look like a joke.

John had been hoping to learn something from this particular demon--it had claimed to be a lord of Hell--but even its escape would do him some good. It would let its masters know that John Winchester was poking around in Maryland, rattling cages in one of the few places he knew was important to the demon. What had happened in Ilchester back in the seventies was simply the last and goriest part of what had turned out to be a long cycle of deaths.

He had first found out about the convent desecrations when he started digging into his grandmother's history and found out that she might not have been so insane after all.

Maybe all of this was just him grasping at straws, or at some connection to his own past, but the murders had stopped just one year before the start of the first ten-year cycle ending in nursery fires.

What had surprised him was how far back the older cycle went. Ilchester, St. Louis, Chartres, London, Palermo, Venice... There were gaps in the historical record, of course, but there was a pattern of nuns and priests being ritually slaughtered in their convent chapels twenty-eight years apart--a 'Saturnian year,' Bobby had called it, rattling off all kinds of other numerological associations--going all the way back to the Borgia popes, and...

It didn't matter. The pattern had been broken, with what he'd found at Devil's Gate, was even more convinced it hadn't been broken so much as replaced with a new, subtler, and shorter pattern. It would take one more ten-year cycle to actually prove it was a pattern, but John intended to cut it well short of that.

John hadn't gone to Ilchester expecting to find out anything new. The rites he'd performed and symbols he'd scrawled (including some surprisingly effective nonsense that he'd pulled straight from his imagination) in the last place the pattern had repeated might have looked as if he was digging for information, but all he was doing was lighting a signal fire.

If all went well, it would also draw the demon's attention away from Toledo, and whatever the boys were up to out there. Fortunately, while Dean no longer seemed to be expecting a call back, but he still left perfunctory messages to let John know where he was and that he and Sam were okay.

"Well, no demon's going to get the better of me," John told Dwayne, but there was no response. It was over.

John closed Dwayne's eyes and did him the dignity of wiping the blood from his face before wrapping the body in a tarp and throwing it in the back of his truck.

John buried Dwayne Pulaski in the Patapsco valley, salting and burning the body before filling in the shallow grave. It had taken a long time to dig a deep enough hole in the frozen ground, but filling it in went much faster. Snow began to fall as he tamped down the last few shovelsful. Soon, it would completely cover the freshly-dug earth.

In a few weeks, John would phone in an anonymous tip so that at least Dwayne's surviving family wouldn't have to wonder any more.

The demon and its minions were _not_ going to win. One way or another, John would stop it. Some day soon, he wouldn't be one step behind, he would be a step ahead.

He did what he could to ignore the nagging voice asking him exactly _how_ he would accomplish this.

After the work of grave-digging, the January chill set in fast, and even the truck's heater couldn't drive away the bone-deep chill. When he got back to the Home-Style Inn he ignored the phone message in favor of a quick, hot shower. Between the time he got in the shower and the time he got out the number of messages on his phone had gone from one to two.

He held the phone between ear and shoulder as he pulled on a clean pair of jeans and listened to Dean explain that he and Sam were in St. Louis. They were also deep in the middle of a hunt, helping out a school friend of Sam's.

John frowned when he heard that last part. He had had his suspicions about some of Sam's 'school friends' in the past. Still, sometimes, a friend was just a friend even though it was safer never to assume that.

 _"And hey, I know you're keeping quiet for some reason, but would it kill you to find some way to let us know you you're okay?"_

John deleted the message in a flash of irritation. If Dean knew he was keeping quiet for a reason, he should have known that was one hell of a stupid thing to ask. He sat down on the bed, pinching the bridge of his nose and reminding himself he had no good reason to be angry at Dean.

Fine. Dean was worried, and John could understand that. Maybe he could get word to Jim or someone once he thought it was reasonably safe. Four words, actually.

 _I'm okay_.

And along with that, _Back off_.

He took a few deep breaths, letting the guilt and rage settle. He checked the phone again, half-expecting to see that the most recent call was also from Dean, but the number wasn't familiar.

For a moment, he wondered if it was the mystery caller from back in October. While the call had led him to find that _something_ had emerged from the Devil's Gate, it hadn't borne any fruit since then. Every lead he'd followed on it had turned up a dead end. He'd all but given up trying to find out any more about it. But you never knew...

" _This is Travis Donahoe_." It took John a moment to remember who that was. It had been about five years or so since he'd worked with Travis. He felt another flash of irritation--the cell phone's message told people to contact Dean rather than leave him a message, so what the hell was Travis thinking?

" _You probably remember I live..._ " There was a sound that made him think that Travis was trying to steady himself. " _I'm just outside St. Louis, and I was watching the local news, and god damn it, John, can you just call me back?_ "

Travis's voice broke in a way John had never heard before. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

John shut the phone and stared at it as if it were a rattlesnake poised to strike. The heat of his annoyance had been replaced with a deep cold that no hot shower could erase.

St. Louis. Dean had called him from St. Louis.

He couldn't make himself move.

He did not want to call Travis back.

He had no choice.

After a few minutes, he was able to make himself imagine a scenario where Dean would be boneheaded enough to use one of John's friends to make the kind of call that John would be sure to return. No doubt Dean and Sam were sitting in Travis's trailer out in Fenton, waiting by the phone and drinking Travis's beer while congratulating themselves on how damned clever they had been.

Righteous anger and giddy relief buoyed him enough to make the call. It was picked up on the first ring and he almost said 'Hello, Dean,' but it was Travis who answered after all.

"John? That you?"

"Yeah, it's me." Everything about this was wrong. Travis usually called him by his last name, not his first. Travis never sounded this shaky, even when he'd been drinking. "Why the hell did you leave a message? Dean's working cases for me while I'm tied up with something."

The long silence dared John to break it, but Travis finally spoke.

"John, I don't know how to tell you this, but I saw it on the news, and I didn't want you to find out by accident. No one deserves that."

"Find out what?" He clutched the phone tightly so he wouldn't throw it across the room. He knew what he was going to hear, but until he heard it, it wasn't real.

"It was... I think it was a hunt gone wrong. I don't know what happened, but the police were involved, and Dean ended up in the middle of it. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Dean's dead, John. John... You there, John? John? Aw, hell..."

Useless. Everything he'd done. All of it.

Useless.

 

 **Now**

"I bet it stings, John, knowing now that all you did was fail."

Azazel participates in the torture by showing him images that cut deeper than any of Alastair's blades. If it were not for the curtain, they would have flayed him to bits that could never be put together again.

He sees Dean, who is neither able to save Sam or kill him, fall to the ground with his neck snapped. He sees Sam's eyes go solid black, stark white, poison yellow.

Another image. Sam leans over Dean's body. Then he sits up and his mouth is stained red. His hand is wrist-deep in Dean's chest. The look on his face is nothing human.

Mary burns, over and over and over again. She dies screaming. She dies cursing his name.

He reaches out, and a red-haired woman bursts into flame.

"What was that, John?" Azazel is back in his favorite body. He even wears the janitor's uniform as if it were his ducal robes. "An old girlfriend? Hot date gone wrong?"

He rests a hand on John's forehead, and John's entire body feels like a scream of pain.

Azazel laughs. "Ah, yes. _That_. That's right. The whole reason I even considered for a moment that you had a _chance_ of being any kind of opponent. Well, it did spice things up a bit. And I suppose I'm glad I didn't fricassee you right along with your slut wife, John. Did I ever tell you how she went around kissing other men?"

This time, Mary bursts into flame as she kisses Azazel, grinding up against him as his hand cups her ass. She breaks the kiss long enough to look at John with scorn, laughing as she burns.

When Alastair offers him a knife, John's hand clenches around the hilt. He squeezes it tightly, and it's a comfort to hold.

He comes very close to breaking (he needs to cut, needs to destroy), but he drops the knife and makes a feeble attempt to spit in Alastair's face.

Alastair slits his throat as Azazel treats him to another nightmare.

In this one, he reaches into Sammy's crib and holds Sammy's mouth and nose shut. He watches calmly as his son flails and struggles before finally going still. Mary would live, and Dean would have something like a normal life. Wouldn't this have been so much nicer? Wouldn't it?

Later, he shoots his children in their sleep, then puts the gun into his mouth and pulls the trigger.

"Once you learned the truth, you realized you had no choice. That's how you really ended up here, Johnny, remember?"

He thinks he does. Everything after that was simply a dream, a flash-forward through what never was in the last seconds of a life that was no longer worth living.

But, then, he remembers that he was with Mary, and Samuel came after them and broke his neck and killed him. That was how he died. Sam and Dean were simply the children who never were, but Azazel made them seem real and then he to tortured John with their loss.

No, no... That wasn't how it happened. Sam and Dean were real, but John lost them along with Mary in the fire. And then he lost them to hellhounds when they couldn't get behind the salt line in time and he had to stand there and watch as they got torn to bits. Except if that happened, he couldn't have shot Dean in the heart when it became all too clear that the werewolf had bitten him after all. Yes, that was what happened. He remembers how Sam had tried to stop him, going wild with rage as Dean fell to the ground, blood spreading across his chest. He remembered how the gun went off as Sam tried to get it away from him and Sam's face went slack with surprise and pain...

In comparison, having his guts reeled out onto a spindle is a joke. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, taking things out on someone else who deserved it.

He waits for the offer, but Azazel orders him to be returned to the hooks. John is grateful not to be offered the knife again.

Hooks dig into flesh, but time now flows in strange loops. He is aware of voices, now. He has been for what he assumes are a few years, now. The never-ending chord has broken apart into deep, sonorous voices the size of cities. Whatever the voices are saying, it loops and hangs in time like everything else here. Whoever the voices belong to, they pay him about as much attention as he would pay a dust mote.

Then, something strange happens. Two things.

Three, taking into account the fact that anything _happening_ here is strange in itself.

The first thing is that one of those background voices finally makes sense. He has no idea why. The fact that the majestic voice is singing a Jimmy Cliff song somewhere in the background is a different kind of strange, so surreal it's hardly worth wondering about.

 _I don't know where life will take me,  
But I know where I have been. _

The second strange thing is that the vivid memories Azazel dragged him through spool out into pale threads of might-have-been. The boys were not murdered by other hunters who thought they were a threat. He and Mary did not have a daughter named Alice and a third son named Jack.

 _I don't know what life will show me,  
But I know what I've seen. _

John notes that majestic or not, the voice cannot stay on-key. It drifts closer.

 _Tried my hand at love and friendship._

The nightmares Azazel had shown him had felt real, but back here on the hooks he thinks he remembers knew what _is_ real.

Real, and important. The voice keeps singing as John thinks through all the ways he _did_ fail his family.

 _Sitting here in_ \--huh!

John feels a crushing pressure as the singer's attention falls on him. Then it is gone, along with the singer. All that is left is a lingering sense of curiosity.

John waits for the singing to start again, but all he hears now is the deep, background nonsense he has become accustomed to in this place.

 _...why...not fair...limited time offer...hast thou forsaken...hateyouhateyouhateyou...why...row, row, row your boat...curse your name...why...father, please, PLEASE...dominoes and biscuits...curse your name and die..._

He soon tunes it out again the way he tunes out the hooks in his limbs and sides. He finds he misses the singing, bad as it was.

He isn't sure what good it will do him in the long run, but for as long as he can, he will focus on what is truth and what is a damned lie.

 

 **1978**

John's second reaction on reading about the murder was guilt. The first--and hence the guilt--was sheer relief.

When Mary heard that Harvey Woodson had been murdered in his own garage last night, she had gasped out loud and asked John what this meant for his job. Then she went red and clapped a hand to her mouth.

"That was awful!" She turned back to the paper, trying to look properly sad. "Your boss is dead, and the first thing I thought about was your job! What is _wrong_ with me?"

John poured himself another cup of coffee, careful of his bandaged hand. "Same thing that's wrong with me," he muttered. He sat down across from Mary and didn't look at the newspaper. "It was the first thing I thought of, too."

To be specific, he felt a surge of relief that he no longer had to tell Mary that he had been let go three days ago. It was nothing personal, Mr. Woodson had told him. There just wasn't been enough money coming in to pay two mechanics, and Mike had two little girls who were relying on his paycheck.

John would have broken the news that night. At least he had been planning to. But then, Mary had surprised him with a passionate kiss and an announcement he should have been thrilled to hear.

After nearly two years of trying, Mary was finally pregnant. Fortunately, his shock did a good job of covering his dismay, and he even managed to convince himself that Woodson would give him his job back in light of this news.

That didn't exactly work out as planned.

"Anyhow, who could have done something like that?" she asked. "The police said nothing was taken."

"Hopefully, whoever it is, is long gone." He knew he shouldn't have lied about being laid off. On the first day, it was just an impulse. He didn't want to ruin what should have been a wonderful evening. On the second day, he had hopes that he could put the situation to rights with no one being the wiser, so there was no need to get Mary all worried. Mike had even gone to bat for him with Woodson, and had agreed not to tell Katie about the layoff.

On the third day, he was beginning to see there could be a problem. When Mary asked him how work went, he said it was fine and wondered how much she knew. But he still thought he could make it right. He could provide for her and the baby, and she'd never have to worry about a thing.

Only now, he felt even more guilty. You'd have thought that he had shot or bludgeoned or stabbed Mr. Woodson himself, he felt so twitchy. He knew he hadn't done anything, but he still felt like he had blood on his hands.

He looked at his bandaged palm and wondered what he would say to the police if they asked him where he was last night, and what on earth he would say to Mary when they dragged his possible motive out into the open and blew his lie to little pieces.

"John?" Mary reached across the table and took his hand, turning it palm-up. "What happened to your hand? It wasn't bandaged yesterday, was it?"

John instinctively pulled away, but Mary's grip always surprised him with its strength, even now. "Dunno," he said, and it was the truth. "I don't remember what happened, but it stings like hell."

Mary looked at him quickly by way of apology, then peeled the bandage back. She drew in a hiss of breath. "Oh, John... You should have let me take care of this!"

"It's fine." He tried to pull back.

"Oh, hush, you." She looked critically at the thin cut that crossed his palm. "Wow. It looks like something sliced clean across your hand. How on earth could you not have noticed?"

"Let it alone, Mary!"

Mary glared at him. "I'm not one of your Marines, John, so don't you _dare_ talk to me like I am! And don't tell me it's fine. Why do you always turn into Drill Sergeant Winchester when you're worried or in over your head?"

"I'm not worried," he grumbled, not looking her in the eye.

"Yes you are, worry-wart. You've been a pill ever since I told you about the baby. It would be sweet, if it didn't make me want to smack you in the head with a skillet. The big, cast iron one." Mary turned her attention back to the wound. "It looks like it's mostly healed, whatever it is, but let me get some peroxide on it anyway. You're lucky it wasn't deeper--it's going to leave a nasty scar as it is."

John felt a wave of cold nausea at the thought of severed tendons. A layoff that never was, was one thing. Not being able to work was another.

Two days later, on Monday, John showed up at the garage. There was plenty of work for both him and Mike to do. A week later, Mike floated an idea past him. It was crazy risky, especially for two guys who either had kids or had one on the way.

John said yes, and got yelled at by Mary that night for making a big decision like that without her. It didn't matter that she thought him going into business with Mike and buying out Woodson's widow was a good idea. It was the principle of the thing.

Going out and buying the exact crib she wanted mollified her enough that John half-suspected her of looking for an excuse to be mad at him.

After he finished putting it together, he stood back and admired his handiwork. He flexed his hand a few times to get rid of the ache. For whatever reason, that cut on his hand had taken the longest time to heal, and it was still a little sore. Mary kept worrying that it might have gotten infected, but it never did. It simply healed slowly, leaving a fine, perfectly straight scar.

You'd think he would remember getting a cut like that.

"John, would you--oh, that looks wonderful!" Mary walked in to the nursery, and the smile when she saw the crib made his heart feel like it was glowing.

She rose up on tip-toe to kiss him, and he forgot that an argument had led to the crib in the first place.

Mary broke the kiss and settled back on her heels. John smiled down at her and rested a hand on her shoulder.

The world slipped sideways.

"John?"

He looked at his hand, resting on her shoulder. The late afternoon light made her golden hair look red, made it glow like fire.

"John, what's wrong?"

He had no idea. Something clanged at the back of his mind. Some memory, trying to kick loose.

"I don't know," he said, and his voice sounded far away, even to him. He ran his free hand down his face--it felt clammy. "Just came over woozy or something. I'm okay. I'll be okay."

"Here. Sit in the rocker." Mary herded him towards the nursery chair with urgent efficiency, and he tried to ignore the tight fear in her voice. He knew what she was thinking. His dad had had his first heart attack when he was forty, and another one had hit him back in February. She took his wrist, and he felt her fingers searching for a pulse. "Your hands are _freezing_ , John. Are you sure you're all right?"

He nodded. And it wasn't a lie. That sudden surge of something was gone as if it had never happened. It was as if he heard a smooth voice telling him that nothing was wrong, that nothing had happened, that nothing would happen. Everything was fine.

Everything was going to be just fine.

The thought brought with it a sort of drowsy peace, and a sense that they were being watched over and guarded.

He pulled Mary close. He breathed in the scent of her hair and tried to make himself comprehend that there was, in fact, a brand-new person growing inside of her.

He was going to be a dad.

That sense of peace came and went over the weeks and months to come. When it left, it left abruptly, often in the middle of the night when his eyes would slam open at three a.m. and his brain acted like it had forgotten how to do anything other than be afraid.

One morning, Mary found him down in the den, trying to find a TV station that had something other than a test pattern or the Farm Report.

"Can't sleep?" He turned to see Mary flickering in the light of television static. Her hand rested on her belly the way it often did now that she had started to show. "Were you dreaming about the war again?"

He shook his head wearily. He gave up on the TV and turned it off. He blinked a few times, and his eyes adjusted to where he could just see Mary in the glow of the streetlight coming through the curtains. "No, not nightmares, not this time."

Mary knew about how he'd been wounded in a mortar attack, and how he would have bled out if Deacon hadn't been right there and had enough sense to keep pressure on the wound. One man had been killed outright, and another had died screaming as they were choppered back to the field hospital.

When John had figured out that Mary assumed his nightmares were about that battle, he didn't bother to correct her.

He had never told her what the dreams were really about, and he probably never would.

When he dreamed about Vietnam, he dreamed about that close call right before he was going to go home. Sometimes the dream ended with the bomb going off and him dying screaming as Deacon tried to hold him together. Other times it ended with a gaunt old man in dress blues showing up at his door (or at dinner or at his bedside or at any other random moment) to politely inform him that there had been a grievous error and his being alive was screwing _everything_ up.

When he woke, it was always with a jolt and in a cold sweat that wouldn't go away for hours.

"I'm just worried, is all." He reached out and put his hand on her stomach. He was always surprised at how firm and warm the rounded belly felt. "About you, and the baby, and all the... I don't know, monsters and stuff that might be out there waiting to get us."

Out loud, it sounded silly, but there was no other way to describe the sudden whirl of fright that would send him bolt upright in bed, heart going so fast he wondered if it was going to explode.

"Monsters?" He would have expected it to sound teasing, but she sounded very serious indeed.

"Not really," he said, and he got a tight little laugh as a reward for the half-truth. "It's just that there are so many things that can go wrong. We both know that. We've both seen it. Come on, let's go back upstairs."

They went, and as they passed the photo of his grandparents, Mary reached out to straighten it even though it didn't need straightening. It was a habit that seemed to have little meaning anymore, but from the look she gave the photo, he suspected some of the old meaning had returned.

Monsters weren't real, but they may as well have been. His mother had been slowly devoured from the inside out by a particularly nasty one, losing the ability to walk shortly after the first and only time she walked him to kindergarten. Another was lurking in wait for his father. A different monster had struck down Mary's parents out of the blue in one night. Further back, his grandmother had been murdered, and rumor had it she had seen her own parents murdered when she was a child. His grandfather had been broken beyond repair by war and grief and disease, and there were times John wondered what would have become of Uncle Jack if he hadn't had to hold it together to look after his nephew.

And then there was another monster, one that was only in his own mind, one that lurked just out of sight, vanishing every time he tried to look at it directly. Something was there, but he didn't know what it was, and he could only hear it breathing in the small hours of the morning.

Once they were back in bed, John pulled Mary close to him and sighed as her head rested in its usual place beneath his chin. Like this, it was easy to forget what was imagined and remember what was true. She reached between them, and there was a moment of laughter as she accidentally tickled him as she tried to find his hand. It was awkward, but they clasped hands as they lay there together.

"I won't let anything happen to you or our children," he said after a while. "No monsters. I promise."

She didn't say anything, but she squeezed his hand hard enough to hurt. It was okay, though. Everything was going to be okay.

 

 **2006**

Everything had gone to hell.

He had been caught off guard, and he had lost. Dean was gone.

And Sam, what about Sam? What would he do? John had to go to him, but he couldn't, that was the whole point...

 _"John? John, are you there?"_

...but there wasn't any point any more. He had stayed away to keep them safe, and it had all gone to hell.

What did any of it matter, if his son was dead?

John snapped the phone shut. The frozen calm he felt right then would have terrified him if he could feel terror.

If he could feel anything.

Every thought was cold and stark and rational. If he had been there, Dean would be okay. But he hadn't been. All the ways John had tried to prepare them, it hadn't been enough in the end. In the end, he hadn't been there when Dean had needed him most.

 _What now?_ he thought, but he couldn't get past those two words, and just repeated them over and over again.

He felt far away from himself, with no idea how to get back. Perhaps he would simply walk out of his motel room and into the snow, never mind that he was only half-dressed, and feel the cold, feel the wind.

St. Louis again, he thought numbly. And another Winchester was dead.

There had to be significance, somewhere, some piece of the master plan, but what did that matter now?

Not one single god-damned bit.

The phone rang, startling him into swearing out loud and nearly throwing the thing up to the ceiling. He caught it and felt something shift sideways when he saw it was Dean's number.

Sam. It had to be Sam. He should answer. What good would avoiding the truth do him now? Staying away and staying silent had done nothing to save Dean, so why should he think it would help Sam?

He continued to stare at the phone as it rang. The cold rationality that shielded him was starting to crack and crumble. Any second now, it would shatter, taking him with him.

The call went to voice mail right as he hit 'talk.' It was only thanks to habit and discipline that he waited to see if there would be a message rather than giving in to the hysterical voice deep inside demanding he call back right _now_ to hear that Sam was all right.

Not that Sam could possibly be all right. Not now. Not ever again.

He didn't know what to expect. Maybe Sam would give a cool, concise report of what had happened. Just as John had trained him to do.

Maybe Sam would let John know exactly what he thought of him for not being there and for not calling back all those times Dean had tried to get hold of him.

Part of him wondered if he would hear a boy who wanted his father, and he hated that he wondered that.

He was not expecting to hear Dean's voice.

" _Hey, Dad_." He sounded bored but tightly wound beneath the boredom. " _I'm hoping this gets to you before anyone else calls to break the news. We were in St. Louis, and Sam and I ran into a shifter--wouldn't have figured out what it was without your journal, so thanks for that--and to make a long and messy story short, the bastard was wearing my face when it was killed. So, if someone tells you I'm dead, I'm not_."

Cold dread was blasted away by white-hot rage.

Goddamn fucking Travis, not double-checking his leads, he should have known better...

" _Sam and I are both okay_." There was a pause, and the sound of Dean clearing his throat. " _Just thought you'd kind of want to know that, and... Well, might be nice if you returned the favor? Let us know that you're okay? Just one--_ "

There was an intake of breath as if Dean was about to say something else, but the message cut off abruptly when he thought better of it.

John put the phone down slowly, telling himself over and over that he was not going to throw it against the fucking wall and watch it shatter into a million pieces.

His hands remained very, very steady as he poured himself a shot of Jim Beam. They were still steady when he poured a second. They were still steady enough when he roared in frustration and flung the bottle against the dresser mirror, sending glass and whiskey everywhere.

He sat down hard on the floor at the foot of the bed, fingers digging into his scalp.

None of this should have happened. Why was he here in a motel that could have been in Maryland or Michigan for all he cared? He shouldn't have simply imagined Mary's voice, telling him to clean up the glass before one of the boys got hurt. She should have fucking _been there_.

Twenty-three years. She had been gone almost ten years ( _be seeing you in ten years, give or take_ ) longer than they had been together. So why did it have to feel as raw now as it did then?

Even though he knew Dean was alive and okay and a little pissed at him--John still felt the jagged, bleeding edges of the loss as if it had really happened.

He had become used to things that shouldn't be real being all too real. He hunted monsters and demons and other things he didn't believe in a quarter-century ago.

But there were also times when things that should be real weren't. Even after all these years he sometimes felt like he should wake up with a start back in his own bed and have a sleepy-worried Mary ask him if he was dreaming about the war again.

He pulled himself up onto the bed, not bothering to take off his jeans or pull back the bedspread. Eventually, he was able to fall asleep, and what was real and what was not tumbled over themselves in his dreams. He dreamed about Dean. He dreamed that the message he received was just a dream. He dreamed that he was standing in front of Dean in a dilapidated house somewhere, and Dean was angrily demanding that John _fix_ things, that he bring Sam back _right now._

In that dream, it didn't matter that Dean was angry at him or that Sam was gone. All that mattered was that they did what they were told. He'd raised his boys to do as they were told. They were obedient sons. They were doomed. It was in their blood. His blood. Their family's blood.

In the dream, Dean looked at him with nothing but hatred and contempt.

He woke with a start and automatically looked to Mary's side of the bed, but he was alone. His head pounded viciously, and he had to listen to Dean's message three more times before he could believe it was not just another dream.

 

 **Now**

After fifty years (he thinks it is fifty), it is no longer so easy to tell false memory from true. When they return him to the hooks, he remembers whatever they show him as if it were real.

Some things they show him _are_ real, and they invariably hurt more than anything they could have made up.

This time, he is convinced that he is the one who sliced Mary's belly open. He remembers how he became short-breathed and painfully aroused as he watched the red bloom across the pure white of her nightgown. He thinks that perhaps it would feel good to slice someone else open like that, and that Alastair's knife would feel good in his hands.

When he returns to the hooks, reality sorts itself out in fits and starts, and he wonders what reason Alastair and Azazel would have for letting his sanity reassert itself after each torture session.

It's probably just another part of the torture. One of these days--if he doesn't take the knife, first--he'll probably end up as just another insane voice in the red, timeless swirl.

Some memories never do sort themselves out clearly.

For one thing, he remembers a conversation with Dean that he knows he never had. It reminds him of a dream he used to have, back in the days when everything was still good and sane and safe. In this dream, Dean is older than John remembers (but he does remember it, and he is not sure why).

As always, there is the red-haired woman. That is something he knows he saw. Now, though, he remembers details of a conversation with Dean that he knows he never had. There are lines at the corners of his eyes that weren't there when John last saw Dean in his hospital bed.

It feels like something real, but he knows it's not something that ever happened to him.

 _Ooh. I think you may be on to something there, pally._

It's not the strange but familiar voice that showed him how to shield himself from the worst of the torture and that told him that there would be consequences to accepting Alastair's offer.

This voice is a snide descant that pulls itself free from the deep muttering that surrounds him in the void.

Whoever it is, he thinks he's heard the voice before. But it wasn't _him_ who heard it. Even though it's his thought, it doesn't make sense, even to himself.

 _Getting warmer! Or is that a tasteless choice of metaphor? Yeah, I think it's tasteless._

The voice sounds quite pleased with itself. John asks the voice who it is, even though he feels like he should know. He's pretty sure it's the thing he heard singing...

 _Yep._

...but that's not where he knows this voice from.

Who are you, he asks.

 _Call me Ish... Nah, call me Virgil._

John asks if he should know who the fuck this person is.

 _Mmmaybe?_


	4. Part Four

**1983**

On the first of December, John got a call at the garage from a David or Daniel or Donald someone. He said something about having met John before, but the idiot was clearly drunk out of his mind and kept rambling out an apology for not taking care of something like he was supposed to ten years ago, he thought he had, he really did, and he was sorry, so goddamn sorry...

After ten seconds or so, John gave up trying to make sense of any of the man's blubbering nonsense, and hung up on him.

Later that day, he got a call from the funeral home, saying that the headstone John was going to have to dip into college funds to pay for had been covered by an uncle out in Colorado, along with everything else John still owed on the funeral. John thanked the man for the news, then went and sat in the office for a nearly an hour with his head in his hands.

He didn't know about any uncles in Colorado, and he didn't care. Having the headstone paid for and ordered was just one more thing that cemented the fact that Mary was dead. How was he supposed to be thankful for that?

That night, he dreamed about Mary. He dreamed about her every night, but this time, things were a little different. She was younger in this dream, almost frighteningly young, but she stood tall and stern as she handed someone a--

He didn't know what it was. In the dream, he thought he _should_ have known what it was, but it was like someone had smudged out that part of the dream. He tried to crane his head to get a closer look, especially when Mary opened the (box? book? something else?) to show someone what was inside.

All he could see was a bunch of blurry nothing.

Mary looked up at him and whispered a name that was his and wasn't all at the same time. Then, she went up like a torch and fell away into ash as he rested his hand on her shoulder.

The next morning at work, he took out Missouri Moseley's card again and stared at it for a while. He did this most mornings. This time, though, he called. He called, he was sober, and he waited for her to pick up.

He wasn't sure how the call would go, but he made an appointment to go see her that Saturday and the whole transaction was surreally crisp and businesslike.

"Everything okay, John?" Mike asked. John hadn't even known he was there.

"Yeah. Fine. Just making an appointment to go see a psychic. Crap, I mean _psychiatrist_. What-the-hell-ever." He waved his hand, dismissing whatever he had just said as unimportant.

Whether or not Mike believed his cover-up, he still looked at John kind of funny for the rest of the day. Friday, as they were closing up shop, Mike wished him luck with his visit to the fortune teller.

John hadn't really thought much about it before, but when Mike tried to be funny, he sometimes ended up being a real asshole instead.

"Seriously, though, whatever it is, I hope it helps. Oh, and Katie said she'd watch the boys for you this weekend."

A prickle at the back of his neck made John wonder if Katie's offer was an offer or a demand. Lately, whenever she asked about the boys, it always had a ring of accusation to it.

"Nah, I've got it covered. I don't want to impose on you guys more than I have."

Mike shrugged, but the look on his face said that he wasn't looking forward to passing the news on to Katie.

That was his problem, not John's. Whenever he was not at work, John didn't care to let the boys out of his sight for an instant. He was bringing them with him to Missouri's tomorrow, and if she didn't like it, she could lump it.

As it turned out, she fussed and cooed over Sam for a good ten minutes before she said anything more than 'hello' to John. She ushered them into a room that was clean but a little cluttered. To his surprise, there was a basket of toys in the corner and even a few board games along the lines of Candy Land and Uncle Wiggly.

"Now have a seat--and don't you dare put your feet up on my sofa, young man," she said, and the wide-eyed look Dean gave her said he had been about to do just that and how did she _know_?

"Babysitting pays a little better than the psychic business," Missouri said, with a smug little grin that said just _why_ her services would be in high demand. "You may want to keep that in mind, what with your worries about Katie Guenther and all. Although, it seems to me it's probably more your guilty conscience than her thinking you're not fit to look after your boys and trying to take them away from you. And don't get all worried that your boy is picking up any of this--his attention's bouncing around the room like one of those superballs right now."

He wasn't sure what to make of the way she could see right to the heart of his fears. It was almost enough to make him run out right then and there.

Missouri sat down, still holding Sam. She dandled him on her lap while he grabbed at the big wooden beads of her necklace. "But you'd do anything for your boys, oh yes you would," she said sing-song, smiling down at Sam. "Yes, even come see the crazy psychic lady, yes you would!"

Dean fidgeted on the couch next to John, and it was clear that the effort of _not_ putting his feet up was a huge trial. Thankfully, his bouncing attention settled on the stack of paper and jar of broken crayons and mismatched markers on Missouri's coffee table. John didn't need to be a psychic to know what Dean was thinking.

"Ask first, Dean."

Dean looked up at Missouri with the kind of pleading expression he had used in place of speech for a while, but then he smiled in a strangely familiar way that gave John the willies about what twelve years later might bring. "Please Miss Moseley can I color?"

"Yes, you can, but don't go trying to charm me like that, young man. Oh, you're going to have your hands full with that one," she warned John with the full force of prophecy. In the meantime, Dean slid to the floor and pulled the paper and crayon jar down with him. "So, you finally called. I thought it was just a matter of time before you did. Why now?"

The obvious retort would be to say that she was a psychic, so why was she asking?

"Because you need to hear yourself say it."

He grumbled, and there was a long, tense silence that broke only when Sam crowed in delight about something that had escaped the two adults in the room.

"There's things I don't remember, things I feel like I _should_ remember, and I can't get at them. Then there are things I _do_ remember, but I know they can't be real. I don't know how the... heck you do it," he said, earning a raised eyebrow for the profanity that wasn't, "but you can see the memories that I'm only getting at sidelong. You knew about the red-haired woman even though I still don't know who she is."

It wasn't a question, but Missouri still shook her head. "Like I said back at the house, I don't think it's a good idea for me to look any closer than that."

"But why would I remember... doing that?" He didn't give any details, not with Dean sprawled right by his feet. Even if Missouri said he wasn't paying attention, who knew what little bits might slip in? "And why am I dreaming about things that I know I saw but that--"

"But that are smudged out like someone ran a sooty thumb all across your brain?" Her lips were tightly pursed. "Yes, I can see it, but I can't see what was smudged out, or what was in that case your Mary was giving to that man. Daniel Elkins. He's the one who called you the other day. He's right on the edge of that memory, so that's why he's so blurry to you."

The name was familiar, but familiar the way a dream fragment was. Now that Missouri said the name, though, it stuck. "Can you see what was smudged out? Or is it like the redhead and you're scared to look any closer?"

"Hmph. There's no need to take that tone with me. I've only had second sight for about thirty years, now, but I've seen enough to know how to guard myself. Something has messed with you, and while I plan to help you and your boys, I don't want to attract the wrong kind of attention. The woman who taught me how to use my gift, she also taught me how to be careful. She said she saw too many people like her--like me--look too closely at the wrong thing and end up in the kind of place where they have to feed and change you like this little one here."

Again, she bounced Sam, and met his wide smile with one of her own. But then her smile faded.

"You poor little boo. So young to have seen so much."

John went lightheaded, leaning forward to clutch his head in his hands. That night, Sam had been staring up at the ceiling the way he would stare up at his mobile. Mary's blood had been dripping on his face.

"Oh. I hadn't seen that clear like that before," she said softly. "I am so, so sorry."

"Stay out of my head," he rasped.

"Who do you think I am?" she said with the kind of calm that went with true anger. "Do you think I would go sifting through your mind without your say-so? John Winchester, you are broadcasting like KCMO. I'm going to need to have an aspirin and a lie-down after you leave."

An attempt to shut everything down only stirred it all up worse than before. He opened his eyes and looked down to see what Dean was drawing.

A picture of their family. All four of them, standing in front of the house. John's heart skipped a beat when Dean picked up a red crayon, but instead of scrawling a mess of fire and blood over the happy home, he moved on to another sheet of paper and started drawing what John assumed was Clifford the Big Red Dog. Clifford had very big teeth.

Missouri stood up, shifting Sam so he was resting against her shoulder. "Dean, you stay right there for a moment. Your daddy and I need to go to the kitchen for a moment."

Dean gave a distracted _mm-hm_ and kept on drawing.

"He's getting bored. He'll start wondering what's going on and start listening. He _did_ see what you saw in that nursery," Missouri whispered once they were out of earshot. "But it's locked down tight and I don't think he or you will ever be able to dig it out again. If I were you, I wouldn't even try."

"Is he going to be okay?" John asked.

Missouri shrugged. "I'm a psychic, not a prophet. And yes, there's such a thing as prophecy and you'd best hope you never get mixed up in anything to do with _that_."

"I'll try to avoid it," he said dryly.

"It's you and Sam I'm more worried about." She looked back into her living room. Dean was still sprawled on the floor, humming and kicking his feet lazily. The latter was a sign he was ready to move on to something else--like eavesdropping. "There's something goofy about your older boy..."

"Goofy?"

"Don't be getting offended, John Winchester. I'm not just talking about his looks, and speaking of that, you are going to have so much trouble down the road. Anyhow, I'm not sure how to explain it, but there's something in him that reads strange, like a sort of openness that has a shape to it. Not a hole, but... like I said, I'm not sure how to explain it. It's like it's waiting for something to fill it. I see it in you, too, only not as much, and something has messed around with it and messed deep. Whatever that openness is, it's a part of you." She rested a hand on his chest. "It's in your blood. Probably always has been."

"And Sam? What about Sam?"

Missouri shook her head, then leaned down to nuzzle Sam. "I don't know. That trait is there, but something's happened to change it, to change the shape of that openness I told you about."

"The something that changed it--is it the same something you saw at the house?" He didn't believe in that sort of thing. He didn't believe what she was saying. He didn't. But he kept after her for the answer. "You said it was something evil. And now you're saying it did something to _my boy_?"

She nodded, and she seemed wary of him for the first time.

"Calm down, John. You losing your temper isn't going to help. And yes, I don't know what exactly, but that thing did something to him. Marked him, somehow."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

He clenched his fists at his side. He had to work to keep from yelling. Dean was just in the other room, he told himself.

"And you're also saying that whatever it is messed with me, too? The same thing that got to Sam?" He had no idea how he was able to speak nonsense so calmly. It almost felt like he was listening to this conversation from a distance.

"No. But _something_ did. Whatever it is, it's tied in with the woman you keep seeing, and all those smudged places in your memory. And to answer what you asked me earlier, I'm not sure if I can clear those away or not. If I can, it won't be easy."

"So, what am I supposed to do now?" It came out much more pleading than he would have liked.

Missouri handed Sam back to him and led him back to the living room. Dean looked up at the two adults, and there was that flash of fear, but he quickly replaced it with a cocky smile. It looked familiar in a way John couldn't pin down.

"You need to learn more about the things we've been talking about." she said, carefully vague. She went to a small desk in the corner of the room and pulled an address book out of the drawer. "And you need to learn how to deal with them. Take this number down."

John crouched down, holding Sam tight against his shoulder, and grabbed a bit of paper and a crayon from Dean's stash. He sat down and copied the number Missouri gave him. She made him read it back to make sure he'd gotten it right.

"Who is it I'm supposed to be calling? Or is it a surprise?"

"Daniel Elkins," she said.

"Wait. You have his number in your address book? What the--"

"Language. I've worked with Daniel before, but no, he doesn't know I've ever spoken to you. Anyhow, I have his number, and the numbers of a whole bunch of other people, too. They're the people who can help you, John, much more than I can right now."

"Who are they?"

"Hunters. And not the kind that go after deer or ducks. I wouldn't trust too many of them myself, but Daniel Elkins is a good man. Mostly. I've never met the man he works with these days, but I've heard good things about him, too. They'll teach you what you need to know to keep your family safe. Now as for you, young man," she said, raising her voice and giving a mock-stern glare at Dean. "I think it's time you and your baby brother had a nap."

There was the usual fuss when it came to getting Dean down for his nap, but Missouri took none of his guff and got him and Sam settled in her guest bedroom. Dean tried to insist that he couldn't sleep in room that was so _girly_ , but he quieted down with one word from John.

"'kay," he muttered.

"Keep an eye on Sam, okay, buddy? I need to talk to Miss Moseley about grownup stuff."

As he thought it would, that did the trick.

"Yessir."

They walked back into the living room. John didn't need to be a psychic to read Missouri's silence.

"You don't approve?"

"That boy will do anything for his little brother. I know you didn't have a choice, but you put a heavy burden on him when you handed Sam to him and told him to get out of the house. You keep putting it on him."

John didn't want to go down that particular road. "You said Elkins could teach me what I needed to know about keeping my family safe. What sort of stuff is it I need to learn?"

If it kept his boys safe, then whatever it was, he would do it.

Missouri studied him for a moment. "Once you start, there's no going back. Once the curtain gets pulled back, you won't be able to un-see what's behind it."

"Do I really have a choice?"

She gave him a wry smile. "I'm used to softening bad news with pretty lies, because that's what most of my paying customers want more than they want the truth. But not you. So the answer is no, you don't. Not really."

John stood firm. He had been through hell already, so what could be worse?

"Tell me."

Missouri sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. She seemed much older, all of a sudden. "Yes. I will, and I am so sorry. Now sit down, John. There's a lot I need to explain."

John listened for a good hour as Missouri pulled back the curtain on a world he wished didn't exist.

 _Angels are watching over you._

It was the first thing he thought of when she told him about ghosts and demons and all the other evil things that angels apparently didn't do jack shit against. Then, as she explained a few things he could do right now to keep his boys safe from the thing that had killed their mother, he thought of Mary Alice and her salt lines and her crazy superstitions.

Not so crazy after all, maybe.

"I can't tell you if your grandmother knew something or not, but there are a lot of people who will think you have gone clean out of your mind. You need to be ready for that."

John nodded. He would have to be careful. If they took his boys away from him, if Katie's disapproving looks turned into some disapproving phone calls to the wrong people, then what the hell could he do for his boys?

This time, Missouri did not chide him about his language. She let him think, and she even went out to her back porch so he could think with some degree of privacy.

Thoughts of what he had told himself must have happened fought against memories of things he had been told had happened, and memories of things that he knew couldn't have happened. Smudge covered some of it but left other parts completely clear.

How could he keep his boys safe? How could he keep them ignorant of this crazy world that had been opened up for him? How could he stop the thing that had gone after Sammy from going after him again?

"I'll call Elkins," he told Missouri when she came back in.

"Good," she said. "I know I've said this before, but I am so, so sorry."

It took him a few days before he got around to calling Elkins. First, he went and talked to few more so-called psychics. One was an out and out charlatan. One wanted nothing to do with him. Two referred him right back to Missouri Moseley. They also told him how sorry they were.

As far as John was concerned, it was a waste of time and thirty bucks.

He also did a little digging through the few of Uncle Jack's papers that he'd salvaged. They were in one of the boxes at the garage, but John relocated them to the Impala. As he thought he remembered, there was a letter Jack had written to his brother to tell him about what had happened to Mary Alice. The letter had never been sent, as at the time no one had even known for sure if Jimmy was alive. Still, Jack had written the letter. John re-read it, looking for details that might mean something different to him now.

Mary Alice had died in the chapel of the Carmelite Monastery chapel near St. Louis. The police had told him that she had been stabbed, and that there was a fire. The letter didn't give any more detail than that (and John wondered how his uncle could have written even that much), but he could picture the dark-haired woman with the I-dare-you smile. He could see her up on a ceiling with a gash across her belly as the ceiling burst into flame behind her.

He called Elkins the same day he read the unsent letter. Elkins was sober, now, and expecting his call, although he didn't seem thrilled to talk to John.

"Sorry about the other day," he said without preamble.

John said it was nothing. He also said thanks for covering the tab for the tombstone, but that wasn't why he'd called. There was something else he needed to talk to Elkins about.

"I'm not going to talk about that over the phone," Elkins told him even before he could explain. I tracked down a job in Wichita once Moseley said you'd be calling. I'll be there by Thursday morning. Leave your kids somewhere safe--I mean _really_ safe--and meet me there."

He gave the name of what sounded like a seedy motel, then hung up before John could say whether or not he would be there.

On Thursday morning, he took the kids to Missouri's. Then he called Mike and said he was going to be out for the day, maybe even a couple of days, and to tell Katie not to worry about the kids. The fact that the phone rang not ten seconds later told him how well that had gone over, but he didn't pick up.

On Thursday afternoon, a poltergeist hit him over the head with a piano bench.

Immediately after, the poltergeist burst into flame and vanished. Elkins came running in a few minutes later to find John curled up on the floor and clutching his head.

"Sorry about that. The bones took forever to catch in this damp."

"S'okay." John sat up slowly so he wouldn't throw up. Seeing the thing burst into flame had freaked him out much more than the piano bench flying up and whacking him in the head. "So that was a ghost, huh? Say, you wouldn't happen to know a guy by the name of Francis Deacon, would you?"

Elkins racked his brain for a moment. "Sounds familiar. Do you know if he ever worked as a security guard at an asylum down in Arkansas? I remember working a bad haunting down there about a decade ago."

"Small world," John groaned. He hoped Elkins kept some aspirin in his truck. "So all of this shit is real, huh?"

Missouri had told him that, and he had kept talking like he believed it, but it still took a piano bench upside the head to make it really sink in.

Elkins held out a hand and helped John to his feet. "All of it and then some," he said sadly. "And speaking of small worlds, there's something we need to talk about."

"Maybe later," John said. "Right now, I want to get home to my boys."

He couldn't quite read the expression on Elkins' face, and for a moment, he wondered just how Elkins had got himself caught up in this crazy life. "Can't say I blame you," he said after a few minutes, his voice rough.

John went home, picked up his boys, and took them to McDonalds for a treat. For one night, he could pretend everything was normal.

Normal didn't last long. He now saw ghosts in every shadow, omens in every flicker of light. At the end of the following week, after a few too many after-work drinks, he broke down and confided in Mike. It was stupid, but he had to talk to someone.

Mike listened, nodding in all the right spots, but it was different from the way Deacon had listened to him.

Saturday morning, Mike called him at the apartment. John could hear the clatter of silverware and dishes in the background, and a waitress barking an order for a stack of flapjacks.

"Mike, are you calling me from Jay Bird's?"

"Yeah. I'm not calling you from where Katie can hear me. Look--I'm not going to pussyfoot around. You've been acting real strange, John. And all that crap you were saying last night, about something happening to Mary..."

He had thought Mike would understand, once he laid out all the evidence. Amazing, how it no longer sounded crazy now that he'd seen a piano bench launch itself across the room at him. The whiskey had helped, too.

"Forget it, Mike. Forget I said anything, okay?"

There was a too-long silence. "Katie's real worried."

"I know."

"John, I'm talking about she's thinking about calling a social worker worried! You're messed up. Real messed up, but no one can blame you for that, not after what happened. I'll do what I can to get Katie calmed down, but you need to get yourself some help. Real help, not some so-called psychic lady. You, uh, left her card out by the phone, you know."

John winced, then took a deep breath. It didn't help much.

"Don't worry, Mike. I'm not going to let anything hurt my boys. Goodbye." He hung up and continued packing and wondering how the hell he'd deal with the kids on the twelve-hour drive to Manning, Colorado.

Once he was done packing, he took out the leather-bound book Elkins had given him just a week ago Thursday. Every page was so pristine it almost seemed a shame to write in it.

Elkins said it would be one of the most valuable weapons he would ever own.

John thought about it for a moment, then pinned his Vietnam medals to the inside cover as a reminder of what this all was. A war, Elkins had said. A war that many people said could never really be won.

He picked up a pen and wondered how the hell to begin. Or where to begin. He couldn't make himself write about November second, not yet. He would have to start somewhere else. After a moment, he wrote:

 _I went to Missouri and found the truth._

He still wasn't sure about this whole journal thing. It smacked too much of something pink with a flimsy lock and 'My Diary' embossed on the cover. For now, though, it was an anchor. It reminded him that everything he saw, everything he remembered from that night, was _real_.

For a moment, he wondered about the things he couldn't remember, but just as always, whenever he tried to focus on them, the truth disappeared in a blur.

 

 **Now**

For all that he seems familiar, John does not recognize this 'Virgil' character. There is nothing to be seen here, just boiling red and the chains that hold him in place. He thinks he can see other chains spiderwebbing off in the distance, but he cannot be sure.

Virgil is nothing more than a sense of pressure and another voice in the swirl surrounding him.

He is the only voice who speaks clearly, though. It is a novelty to have a conversation with someone who is not Alastair or Azazel.

John asks if Virgil is meant to be a reference to Dante.

 _Oh_ , please. _I expected better of you. And no, it's not Dante. Talk about a cliché. No, I'm not here to take you skipping across the ninth ring of Hell so we can play Whack-a-Mole with the heads sticking out of the ice. Tell you what--I'll check in with you again when you get smarter. That'll be what, maybe a century or two from now?_

Virgil, or whoever he really is, fades back into the timeless chaos that surrounds them. John is left only with a teasing snippet of sound.

 _Ka-thump. Ka-thump. Ka-thump._

It's a solid, honest, defiant sound. He recognizes it from one of his own memories. He doesn't know what it's of or where it's from, but it triggers a laugh. It's also the first thing in Hell he has found to be in any way hopeful.

For the first time in a long time, he thinks about his boys and it's not a bleak fantasy or a memory of yet another way he failed them.

He knows he is only setting himself up for more torture (and yes, that has to be why he can sense time passing, and why he has a semi-friendly voice talking to him, it's all just building up hope so it can be torn down as cruelly as possible) but John allows himself to think of the boys.

He allows himself to hope that maybe, just maybe, they're okay. That they'll find themselves a happily ever after or something close to it.

The hope turns into a wish that he could see them, just one more time, and he thinks that Alastair would be awed at the pain that wracks through him at the realization that he can't and never will.

 

 **2006**

"John Winchester, I could just slap you." Missouri sounded just the same as she had the last time he had seen her twenty years ago. "Why won't you go talk to your children?"

They had been right outside. He could have just walked out and seen them for himself. He could have stood up and called out to them and they would have charged right inside. But instead, he made himself sit right here on Missouri's couch until he heard the Impala's engine disappear into the distance along with everything that mattered in this world.

"I want to." He couldn't remember the last time he had been so close to crying. It was almost a relief to know that he still could. "You have no idea how much I want to see them. But I can't. Not yet."

It should have all been settled by then. He had found the patterns, so by now he should have figured out what the demon wanted with Sam and the other children.

The demon he had interrogated at Ilchester had mocked him for how little he knew about what had been done to the children, and why.

He didn't know, but his imagination could supply all kinds of horrible possibilities.

"Not until I know the truth."

How much of the truth had Mary known? Was it the reason her spirit had stayed in their old home? He kept twisting his wedding ring and wondering if she had known he was there.

He wondered where she was now. He refused to believe she was just _gone_.

"And if that doesn't happen? What if you _never_ learn it? What then? You're just going to give up on what could be your last chance to see your boys? Just like you gave up on that other boy?"

John had not told Missouri about Adam, but he knew better than to be surprised that she would know about him.

It had been nearly a year since he'd seen Adam Milligan, close to half a year since they'd even talked. That was when Adam had called to ask if maybe he'd want to come by for Thanksgiving if he didn't have any other plans. John had said he didn't think he could make it, and Adam had let slip a 'that's good.' He had apologized over and over for the slip, but John was more relieved than hurt at the sign that Adam was getting just as tired of the game as he was. It was something each of them had needed, but only for a while. When he said goodbye, he told Adam to call if he ever needed anything, but he had a feeling it would be the last time they would ever talk.

He felt like he should have done more, but he didn't know what.

Missouri _tsked_ at him. "There are so many ways you did better by that boy than you did Sam and Dean. You couldn't spare a word for them just now? Just a word?"

She wasn't going to let this go, was she?

"I kept them safe, Missouri. That's what they needed, not some sort of 'let's pretend' attempt at normal." In some ways, Missouri's ability to pick things from his mind was a help. It saved time. "I'm _keeping_ them safe, and right now, that means keeping them away from the demon which means keeping them away from _me_. If it's chasing after me, if I'm drawing its attention away, then maybe they'll be clear whenever it tries to execute its plan."

Missouri gave a derisive snort of laughter. "You don't even know what that plan is!"

John stopped twisting his wedding ring round and around his finger. "I _should_ know! I know it's in here," he snapped, tapping at the side of his head. "All those smudged bits. If I could crack open my head--"

"Don't tempt me, John Winchester!" She moved over to the phone but did not pick it up.

"I'm close! I know I'm close. That gun that everyone talks about like it's a legend? I know it's out there. I don't know why, but I know it exists. I also know that the demon has big plans for Sam, and I feel like I should know what they are. Something in here," again, he tapped at his head, this time hard enough to hurt, "tells me I do, and that I've even come close to getting my hands on that damned gun. It's my own story, but for some reason I'm missing large pieces of it."

For some reason, Missouri kept glaring at the phone as he ranted.

"I know you can't dig up what's missing, not without blowing out every blood vessel in your head, but there's got to be someone who can! Someone who can fill in the missing pieces before it's too late!"

The phone rang.

Missouri rolled her eyes and muttered 'speak of the devil' as she picked up the phone.

"Hello." She listened for a moment, her lips pursed in disapproval. "Yes, he's here. Yes, _finally_ , not that you have any cause to expect him to be... If you give me any more of your sass, Harry, I swear I will hang up on you right now!"

She held out the phone to John with a stiff little smile.

"It's for you."

John stared at her for a moment, then reached out to take the phone.

"Hello?"

He heard a clink of ice and a slosh of liquid. Then, someone's throat clearing. "Let's see." There was a rustle of paper. "Mary carries her older son in to say goodnight to his baby brother. There's some sweet domestic fluff and eventually the kids are in bed and so are the parents. Wait! No! Apparently _you_ aren't there when the baby monitor starts making noise. Shameful, as it is your turn for diaper duty."

"What is this? Who are you?"

The caller ignored him, and went on with the story in his not-Maine accent. "But no! You _are_ on duty after all, like the good husband you are. Mary finds you in the nursery. You shush her and she is reassured that all is well. She heads back to bed, but a light in the hallway flickers. She's concerned, but not too concerned--at least not until she sees--aha!-- _more_ flickering from downstairs! It's tense and spooky and so on and so forth. She goes downstairs, and what does she see but _you_ , asleep in your chair in front of some dreary old war movie."

"How do you know this! Were you there? What else do you know? How can I stop this thing?"

The caller paused, but it was only long enough to take another drink. "Who, then, Mary wonders quite rightly, is that strange man in the nursery? She dashes back upstairs, anxious for the safety of her youngest child. What does she see in there? Who can say? It must be something truly terrible, because she screams loud enough to wake you out of a sound sleep. You go running, as any man would when someone he loves is in danger, but there's no danger when you get to the nursery. Only your son, in his crib. But then you notice the blood dripping on his face. I could go on, but you know the rest of the story as well as I do, Mr. Winchester."

John was too stunned to say a word.

"Or was that Mr. Aframian? That is what you called yourself the last time we spoke, right?"

 

 **Now**

John knows who 'Virgil' is.

 _You do?_ Virgil says. He, or she, or whatever seems both pleased and wary.

No, not really. But John has finally placed the reference.

Virgil Hilts, the 'Cooler King,' played by Steve McQueen. _The Great Escape_ , 1963.

 _Oh, I_ love _that movie!_ Virgil sighs.

It's one of John's favorites, too, although at the end it managed to pick up some unsettling associations.

 _It took you long enough to figure it out, John. What finally did it?_

It's hard to explain. It was a number of things that did it. The ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump of a baseball thrown against the wall of a solitary confinement cell over and over and over. The strange thread of hope that the reference dredged from the ruins of John's soul. It's also the knowledge that this place is like the Cooler from the movie, a holding cell where one puts a problem prisoner.

A problem prisoner who uses the time to think and plan, throwing his baseball over and over against the walls of his cell. Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump.

There is a wave of insufferable smugness from Virgil. John doesn't mind. This is the first thing he's had like a friendly conversation in decades. He's surprised he still knows how.

He wonders what Virgil wants with him, because everyone wants _something_ in Hell, but halfway through a discussion of _Cool Hand Luke_ , John thinks he gets it.

He's not the only one who hasn't had a friendly conversation in a long time.

There are other beings out in the void surrounding him. He can even see some now, bits of red swirling around red. They are things like Virgil, but most of them are vastly smaller. Some of them speak, but it's only fragments of nonsense. They are only fragments of nonsense. Their chatter, suspended in time, is what made up that deep chord that he remembers from his first decades in this place.

Once, one of these fragments takes notice of him. It surges at him in a wave of spite and rage, and John knows that if it gets at him, there will be nothing left but scraps of memory and nonsense when Alastair comes to fetch him from the hooks.

Rather than seeing it as a release, the thought terrifies John. Even after all that Alastair has done, he still has his _self_. This would undo that in ways that John can barely understand.

The thing spews a barely coherent screed of _all your fault you your sons your family damn you damn you ruined everything all my plans my glory my power wasn't supposed to end like this wasn't supposed to end up here damn you all your wife your sons your family all the way back to creation damn you damn you damn you power and the glory damn you..._

Whatever it is, it is not a demon. It is something far worse. There is nothing he can do. The hooks hold him fast.

The mad, spiteful thing is almost upon him, but then something else moves between them, silent and inexorable as a shark. Friendly as a shark as well, from what John can tell. Whatever it is, it forms a burning cold wall that stretches from horizon to horizon, keeping the spiteful thing at bay.

When the wall retreats, the thing's hateful rant has faded to the distant whimpers of a wounded animal. John is not sure what happened, but the spiteful thing has been diminished to near tatters.

 _Okay_ , that _was fucking hilarious!_ Virgil says. _I always did hate that petty little douchecanoe_.

When he asks Virgil about these two, he gets the impression of a shrug in the roiling light and looping time.

 _One of them has it in big time for you and your family, which you probably could've guessed. The other..._

There's a sigh that suggests great longsuffering and a reluctant affection.

 _Well, I guess it kinda makes sense that what's left of ol' Rags there would feel some sort of affection--and you have no idea how strange that idea is--for you and your family._

John has no clue what any of that means. 'Rags'--John doubts that's really the thing's name--circles slowly beneath him, and it is at once calm and crackling with rage.

 _You really don't know fuck-all about your family history, do you?_

What?

 _Eh... never mind,_ Virgil says. _It's not important_.

He's lying.

 

 **1980**

John's mom always had loved flowers, but the illness that gradually took away the use of her limbs meant she couldn't garden. She did enjoy the cut flowers that his dad brought home for her every Friday, but that wasn't enough, and so she spent hours and hours planning elaborate gardens she would never be able to plant herself.

When Mary had said that the spring weather had her itching to do something to spruce up the back yard, John's dad told them about the folder full of plans John's mom had drawn up over the years. He wasn't sure if he still had it, but if he did, it would be in a file box in the basement.

One of the many, _many_ file boxes in his basement.

From the way Mary's face lit up at the idea, John knew he was doomed to spend a day in the must and murk looking for a folder that may or may not exist. In the end, it didn't take him long to find. John's dad had gotten his money's worth and then some out of the label-maker he bought ten years back, and nearly every box in the basement was tidily labeled with things like YEARBOOKS or 1970-1976 TAXES. One box, which had been taped shut so long ago the tape had yellowed and lifted away from the box, had simply been labeled LAURA, even though the box already had 'Laura Emerson Winchester' in his mom's shaky and nearly indecipherable handwriting on the side.

There were a number of files in there, including some of his mother's old schoolwork, cards and letters she had received over the years, and of course her medical records. John knew there were other traces of his mother's life scattered throughout the house and in the other boxes in the basement, but the single box just drove home the fact that there was so _little_ of her left.

At first, he didn't see any sign of a gardening folder, but that made a certain amount of sense. Why would his dad have held onto plans for a garden that never was or could have been? John's childhood home had been landscaped in what could only be described as Early Modern Low Maintenance. If it couldn't be handled with a lawnmower or an electric hedge trimmer, George Winchester couldn't be bothered.

Just as he was putting the lid back on the box, he saw one file that didn't quite match the others. It was a dark green legal-sized file that had been inserted perpendicular to the others so it would fit in the box. It seemed to have been placed to avoid notice. The label on the file tab said 'Gardens' in shaky writing, but the glue was old and so the label came loose fluttered to the ground as he pulled out the folder.

The label had covered up more of his mom's handwriting. It was steadier than most of her later writing, and he had no difficulty reading it:

> _Mary Alice_

John wasn't sure what to expect, but it wasn't invoices from a private detective and photocopies of county records and old articles from the Wilmington _Evening Journal_.

His mom had gone digging into her mother-in-law's life, but whatever she had found, she had deliberately kept from her husband and Uncle Jack.

John read through the first article.

The article stated that on February 21st, 1915, William Francis Beaumont and Margaret Thibodeaux Beaumont had been murdered in their mansion on Carr Road, along with one of their maids (no name given). There was no sign of breaking and entry. The only witness was their five-year-old daughter, Mary Alice, but the shock had rendered her insensible. The few details he saw in the next paragraph were enough to tell him that Mary didn't need to see _anything_ in that folder, especially now.

He jammed the file back in the box and then shoved the box well out of sight behind VACATION SLIDES EUREKA SPRINGS and 1963-1969 TAXES.

When he went home, he got a lingering hug as a reward for his long labor in the dank and dust even though it had turned up nothing.

"Yick. You've got spider webs in your hair." Mary stepped back just long enough to wipe away the evidence of his quest, then pulled him close again. He rested a hand between her shoulder blades and she hummed with contentment.

He wasn't sure what it was, but while the anniversary of her parents' death would send her into quiet and angry withdrawal, there would also be times when she would be even more desiring of contact than usual. There would be long hugs like this, but there would also be more casual, passing touches, as if she was simply checking to make sure he was still there.

He didn't really understand it, but he wasn't about to complain.

John shifted his hand teasingly lower down her back, and leaned down to nuzzle at her ear. Mary gave a knowing chuckle, and her own hand moved lower and gave a nice squeeze.

The moment was interrupted by a crash from upstairs.

"I'll go check on Dean the Destroyer," he said with a sigh.

Mary patted him on the ass by way of saying they could pick up where they left off later, and he headed upstairs.

Their next child, he thought grimly, would be a little girl. A sweet, docile little girl who did not think that making things going _smash_ and _crash_ was the best fun ever. The books all said that a fifteen-month-old should be 'mobile' and 'curious,' but what that really meant was that the little terror would zip around faster than you could imagine and that anything that was within reach and not nailed down was fair game for grabbing and throwing--or possibly eating.

John was not at all surprised to find that Dean had escaped his crib--again--and was sitting in the middle of the floor looking very proud of himself.

"No!" he exclaimed gleefully.

That was Dean's new favorite word.

"What have you done now, Dean--oh, no, you didn't..."

John scooped Dean up from the floor and away from all the very tempting and very sharp fragments of porcelain. He really, really hoped Dean hadn't decided to chow down on any of them.

John plunked Dean back down in the crib. "You stay right there," he ordered. Dean seemed taken aback, then defiantly blurted another "No!"

"Stay!" He hoped Mary didn't overhear that. He didn't want another lecture about talking to his kid like he was a dog.

Dean flumped back on his rear and sat there quietly--for the moment.

John inspected the damage. If he read the scene right, Dean had flung his stuffed bunny with enough force to hit the knick-knack shelf on the wall over the rocker and knock Mary's little garage-sale angel to the ground.

"Your mom's not gonna be happy with you," he informed Dean. Mary had loved that stupid little angel.

"No!" Dean exclaimed with much pride. It was almost funny, but it also made John fear for what the future would hold.

For a moment, John thought about simply disposing of the bits quietly much as he had put the file about Mary Alice back without a word, but Mary had heard the crash.

Besides, being honest about this might make up in some way for that other small deception.

He swept up the fragments, and dumped all but the largest two--the head and a piece of a wing--in the bathroom wastebasket.

When he went back down to the kitchen, he held the two fragments up like trophies.

"I regret to inform you that we have a fallen angel."

Even before he saw the look on Mary's face, he knew it wasn't funny. It didn't matter that it was only a little loss; even those hit hard this time of year.

"What are we going to do with that boy?" she asked as she wiped away tears.

 

 **1985**

John had no idea what to do about Dean. They drove down the two-lane highway late into the night, the darkness to either side of them as vast as the silence inside the car.

Dean kept looking at him as if he had some kind of answer, but John didn't know what the hell to say.

Worse than that, he had even less idea what Mary would have wanted him to say. Not long after they met, Daniel and his partner Matt had filled him in on what little they knew about Mary's family history. What that all meant was still sinking in, but even after a short time as a hunter John knew why Mary had been so eager to put everything Campbell far, far behind her.

He also knew that Mary never would have wanted her boys to know a thing about hunting or what hunters did. Even with her not here to tell him so, he knew that. And now he had screwed it all up.

What made it even worse was that it would have been so simple to avoid. He could almost hear Mary tearing him up one side and down the other for not having parked the boys at Caleb's while he went out to Delaware. In her absence, he simply beat himself up for being such a fucking idiot.

He had _thought_ about taking Caleb up on his offer, but it wasn't like he was going on an actual job, so why spend another two days on the road and away from his boys?

In hindsight, those two days would have been time well-spent. The information in Delaware wasn't going anywhere, and when he did get hold of it, it didn't tell him much more than the old article about his great-grandparents' death had. The Beaumonts had been brutally murdered and their eight-year-old daughter had seen everything but would not or possibly could not speak about it. He continued going through microfiche trying to find follow-up articles, but once the newspaper jackals found something else to be shocked and scandalized about, Mary Alice had been shipped off to far-away relatives with the same kind of hush usually reserved for unwed mothers.

Even without the detail, John knew it had to have been the same thing that killed Mary--and the same thing that had killed Mary's parents. John was certain of it. If only he knew more about what happened that night back in seventy-three. Daniel only knew the barest detail, but John had a feeling that the answers were a bit closer to home. After all, something had messed with _him_ , or at least his memory.

(The one probing look Missouri had taken at those smudged spots had convinced her that she wasn't going to try to look any closer, no thank you. He tried to press the issue, because how the hell else was he going to unlock what was in there? Instead of retorting, Missouri had simply dabbed at her eyes, making sure he saw that the tissue came away red, and that was the end of that.)

Even without leaving the boys with Caleb, things would have been okay if only he hadn't stopped to call Daniel. There wasn't any good reason for John to check in right when he did. Yes, he had told Daniel he'd call with what he'd found in Delaware, but he could have called when he stopped for the night in Indianapolis.

But decided to call when he stopped for gas in Ohio, and he regretted it almost at once.

"You're saying the same thing that killed your wife and her folks killed your great-grandparents?" Daniel asked when John told him what he'd found. "That's one hell of an assumption on not much evidence, John. Also, from where I'm sitting, that thing was stalking your _wife's_ family, not yours. Reaching back--what is it, three generations? That's not a real immediate connection."

John said nothing. There was no use in going through all of that again. Mary's family had been hunters. Daniel didn't know that much about them, but he knew that it had been a demon that had killed Samuel and Deanna. He also said it had damn near killed John, too, although Daniel was a bit fuzzier on that part of the story. Mary hadn't gone into detail, he said. Too broke up or something. What he didn't say, but what John heard anyway, was that John probably wasn't important to the demon other than as a way to yank Mary's chain.

"Still, I'll admit it sounds fishy," Daniel conceded. "The fact that Matt and I haven't found much detail on what happened to Mary Alice Beaumont makes it fishier. Whatever it was, it got swept under the rug but good. The police report was a joke, but I'm amazed there's even that much, given it happened on church grounds. The Vatican used to be pretty good at keeping anything like that out of the press. Not so much these days, but anything that might be demon-related would still be locked down tight. Even more so after 'The Exorcist.'"

John endured the inevitable rant about the 'piece of crap movie' and all the problems it had caused for people dealing with _real_ demons. The rant went on until he heard Matt laugh in the background and tell Daniel to just let it go already.

"Sorry about that. Anyhow, if you still want to find out more about what happened to your grandmother, there's a priest by the name of Jim Murphy up in Minnesota who might be able to help out. He's a hunter, and I've been meaning to put you in touch with him for a while, now. Oh, and by the by, I got word of a haunting in Findlay, Ohio. You said you're just past Columbus?"

John paused, straining to listen to the _Dad! Daaa-aaad!_ from the Impala and determine if it meant actual distress or simple boredom.

"Daniel, I can't. I've got the kids with me."

"Oh, for God's sake!" Daniel took a deep breath and John could hear him forcing himself not to shout. "How many times to I have to tell you that there's plenty of safe, and I mean safe places that'll keep them? It's bad enough falling into the life the way you did. You _don't_ want them growing up in it. Trust me on that. There's plenty of people who'll be more than glad to keep them and keep them safe until you find the thing that killed their mother."

And how long would that take? Ten years? Maybe it would be for the best, but would he still be 'Dad' after that? Sam would never remember his mother, and damned if he'd let his boy forget his father, too.

More importantly, if the thing that got Mary was also after Sam, then John was not about to let himself fail his family again.

"Well, I've got them with me right now, and you being pissed about it isn't going to change a god-damned thing. There's no way I can take on a hunt right now."

A long silence took the place of the rest of their old argument. The fact that John didn't hear Matt in the background telling Daniel to settle down spoke volumes.

"It's not a 'hunt,' John," Daniel finally said. "It's a milk run. I did some calling around to the library and the local paper, and we know already who the ghost was and where the body's buried. It's just a salt-and-burn job, and it's either you go two hours out of your way or the nearest hunter's got to haul carcass from the ass-end of Kentucky. The boys can stay in the car. Tell 'em you've got to go take a piss or something."

"Fine." He got the details from Daniel and hung up. Once he was done putting gas in the Impala, he took the boys into the convenience store and bought two cans of lighter fluid and a canister of salt. He reminded himself he needed to get in the habit of keeping these things on hand, just in case. He also picked up a bottle of apple juice and a pack of Hostess Cupcakes for the sake of keeping the peace.

If it weren't for the boys, he wouldn't have thought twice about taking the job. He owed Daniel and his partner Matt a lot for teaching him the basics of what he needed to know to find and kill the thing that had killed Mary. Also, in a sick sort of way, other than the boys, men like Daniel and Matt and Caleb and Jefferson were the closest thing he had to family anymore. They were the only people who could understand what he had been through and why he needed to go after this thing.

According to Daniel, it wasn't really possible to _kill_ a demon, although he did grudgingly admit once Matt pressed the issue that there were legends of something that maybe could do the job. Just legends, though, Daniel grumbled. Not anything worth looking into.

If there was one thing John had learned in the past year and change, it was that some legends were real. If there was something out there that could kill a demon, he _would_ find it.

After taking Dean to the restroom and changing Sam's diaper, John got out the road atlas to figure out the shortest route to Findlay.

It wasn't a bad drive. They were able to pick up some decent radio stations, including a good rock station. One even devoted a solid half-hour to nothing but Zeppelin, and he and Dean had a great time singing along to 'Ramble On.' Dean mangled most of the words, and John did a manful job of keeping himself from laughing. Sam couldn't really sing well yet, but he could shout the chorus and do his best to clap in rhythm.

These little moments of normal were few and far between, and when they happened, John knew it was best just to enjoy them in the moment and not think about them too much. Invariably, that would just lead to him drinking himself into a stupor as he got lost in thoughts of all the normal that could have been.

When the song ended and 'Black Dog' began, Dean shouted along perfectly to the opening, and John gave up and just let the laughter fly. In response, Dean just sang along even louder while Sam laughed. Just for a moment, everything was perfect and everything was okay.

Just two hours later, they were driving in utter quiet. The radio was off, Sam was sound asleep, and Dean was lost in the kind of silence that John remembered from two Novembers ago.

Daniel had been right. The salt-and-burn was an easy job. Millicent Fischer had been buried in a marked grave in an old family lot, but a new house being built on the site of the house where she had been tortured and eventually killed had stirred up a very nasty ghost.

Very nasty, but not very powerful. Sticks and small rocks rose up and flung themselves at John as he approached her grave, but that was nothing. She had been buried shallowly enough that it didn't take long for him to get to the coffin.

Millicent's plain wooden coffin fell apart easily when he whacked it with his shovel. He emptied the canister of salt over the corpse, then squirted her down with lighter fluid. He tossed a match into the grave and stepped back, nearly tripping over Dean.

"Dean! What did I tell you about staying in the car!"

Dean said nothing. He just gaped in horror at the flames.

"Dean, when I tell you to do something, you _do_ it!" he roared. "When I tell you to stay in the car, you _stay in the goddamn car!_ "

Dean still said nothing and kept staring down into the grave. Millicent's bones glowed red.

John grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back to the car, ignoring the yelp of pain. He was so furious he couldn't say any more. Furious at himself, and scared shitless at his own stupidity.

How was he going to explain this away? How the hell could he have been so _stupid_ to believe he could keep this from the boys for this long?

Sam. Sam was still innocent, right? He could run damage control with Dean and do what he could to keep Sam ignorant and safe. Maybe he could make this be okay after all. Maybe this Pastor Jim person would have some ideas. Maybe...

He had fucked up. He had fucked up badly.

Dean was pliant as a rag doll as John got him back into the car.

"What the hell am I going to do, Mary?" he muttered.

They drove on in heavy silence until the earlier moment of normal seemed like just another dream.

Night fell, and the sky grew confiningly dark. There was no moon, and heavy overcast blacked out the stars. Still, they drove on and on, and the Impala's headlights didn't reach nearly far enough down the two-lane highway.

John had no warning at all before the heavens exploded.

One moment, darkness. The next, blinding light. Dean shrieked as John nearly swerved off the road. The light resolved into a streak of blue fire that cut through the clouds to race to earth somewhere over the horizon.

Pain ripped through his shoulder as he wrangled the car out of the skid and pulled to a stop that threw the boys into the footwells. The headlights shone out into a whole lot of nothing. If they had skidded any further, the car would have tumbled down into a creek or smashed into a couple of huge trees.

He turned off the ignition with a shaking hand.

"Daddy?"

He felt a small hand on his arm. In the back, Sam started fretting.

"Daddy?" Dean sounded far more worried than a six-year-old kid ever should. "Are you okay?"

He didn't think so.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, Dean. You, uh, you saw that shooting star, right?"

"Uh huh!"

The brightness returning to his son's voice helped stop the shaking, but not entirely.

"It just startled me, is all." He rolled his shoulder, and while he felt a twinge, nothing felt out of place. "We've been driving for a while, so let's stop for a minute, okay? I need to get your brother settled down. Hey--I know, let's camp here in the car tonight. How about that?"

To Dean, sleeping in the car was an adventure and a treat, something he hardly ever got to do. To John, it was a misery, but something had rattled loose in his mind and he didn't trust himself to drive any further that night.

"Okay!"

Once John dealt with Sam's tears and Dean's declaration that he hadda go pee, he settled as best he could along the bench seat. There was no way he was going to be able to get any decent rest, not with his shoulder throbbing and his heart going ninety miles an hour. The kids, of course, fell asleep almost right away.

John hadn't thought of that red-haired woman in nearly a year. It had gradually begun to seem like a dream that he could only half-remember upon waking.

Something about that shooting star had changed all that. He could see her clearly, now. Hear her, too, as she looked up at him in terror and called him by a stranger's name.

It wasn't him who killed her, even though it was his hand on her shoulder.

Something _else_ had been in his head. Something had used him like a god-damned puppet. Whatever had messed up his memory had done it from the inside.

All he had been able to pick out from the mess up to now was one fragment that had him wondering if he had actually killed a woman.

He hadn't. The memory fragment wasn't _his_ memory. Whatever it was had left traces of smug superiority and scattered memories, and he thought he could feel other traces of things that had almost, but not quite been shaken loose by the shooting star.

One thing that had shaken loose was that the red-haired woman was someone this other person had known. The redhead had wanted to kill Mary. She had wanted to _destroy_ Sam.

Whoever or whatever it was that had killed the red-haired woman wasn't going to let that happen, but John had a hard time feeling very grateful towards it. And who was that man he saw on the fringe of the memory? Kin of Mary's? It certainly looked like it could have been--there was a strong resemblance around the eyes. It was probably one of those mysterious Campbells who were the current world champions at not being found.

He poked and prodded, but nothing else came loose. The only logical conclusion was that he must have been possessed by a demon at some point, and he was remembering a few of the things that had happened while it had been in the driver's seat. Daniel said he'd known a couple of hunters who'd been possessed, and that they said their memories of the possession had been all jumbled up and blurry. It could be that the demon that had jumped him was a rival of the one he was hunting, but what little John knew about demons told him that the enemy of his enemy was by no means his friend.

It was one thing to suspect that this story was bigger than he had first thought, but now it was starting to sprawl out much further than he could possibly had imagined. He didn't know what it was about, or who the players were, but he did know one thing:

Wheoever these bastards were, it looked to him like they were fighting over his boy like a god-damned prize. It didn't matter what they wanted him for--John was not going to let them have him. He was not going to let either side take another shot at his family.

He didn't sleep much that night if he slept at all, but he thought, and he planned. He began to figure out what he needed to do.

The next morning, he called Daniel to tell him Millicent had been salted and burned. He also asked for directions on how to find this Pastor Jim person. Daniel was more than happy to give him the address.

That night, they stopped in a motel outside of Madison, and John showed Dean how to pour salt lines in front of the doors and across all the windowsills. For extra measure, he had Dean pour a salt line all around his and Sam's bed.

"This will help keep you and your brother safe, just like me setting that fire last night helped keep someone else safe," he said. It was enough explanation for now.

Dean was--slowly--getting better at following instructions, so he just nodded and poured out a line of salt, the tip of his tongue sticking out between his teeth as he concentrated on keeping it nice and even and unbroken.

"Remember, it's for you _and_ for Sammy," John said, knowing that would help ensure obedience more than anything else.

He said a quiet apology to Mary for pulling Dean into this, but what he'd remembered told him this was big enough that he had to make sure Dean knew how to protect himself and his little brother while John figured out what the demon wanted and how to stop it.

The fact that some of the answers might be right there in his own head didn't make them seem any easier to find.

 **Now**

"I thought you might want to know that I've started gathering my children." Azazel lounges against Alastair's worktable, watching John bleed out. John never knows from session to session whether or not his torture will be mental or physical or both. "I'll be pitting them against each other, to see which is the strongest. Not Sam though, not yet, not for a few more months. You see, he's my top seed in all of this. I'll throw him in once I've weeded out the worst of the losers. Otherwise, it won't be any _fun_."

John says nothing. He can't, with his tongue removed and all his teeth knocked out and nothing left of his lungs. It should be impossible for him to feel anything after what Alastair and his newest apprentice have done to him over the past two days, but his heart twists at Azazel's words, adding to the already unbearable pain. He should have been returned to the hooks by now, but maybe Alastair has figured out that the hooks have become a kind of respite.

Even though John doesn't trust Virgil a lick, their occasional conversations are the only thing that have allowed John to hold on to his _self_. Even the curtain he draws across his soul is starting to fray and weaken.

At some point, he supposes he and Virgil will run out of movies to talk about, and that escape will be gone as well.

"Out of all my children, Sam's got the most potential. You should be proud. I've got my money on him, although there's a couple of other kids who show promise. It'll be a shame to lose them, but you know what they say about eggs and omelettes. There are a few other details I'll need to take care of, and hey, maybe you'll get to see him again. A nice little Winchester family reunion. Mmm. The thought makes my heart melt."

The way Azazel lingers over the prospect has John desperate for this never to take place. A conversation that took place over half a century ago echoes under Azazel's words.

Long ago, Azazel hinted that there is some part he is meant to play. John knows that this thing plans to use Sam, but him? He's just a bit player. Chances are, he'll never know how the story ends. Or he'll know, and that might be what pushes him over the edge and makes him reach out for the knife Alastair offers.

Dangling the possibility of purpose in front of him may just be another form of torture. That's all his existence is, any more.

Well, sometimes it isn't. There is an odd sort of society in that timeless, looping place where he's kept in storage between torture sessions.

Well, there's Virgil, when he bothers to show up. It can be years between appearances, and his visits don't always happen in the right order.

Rags is always somewhere nearby, though, but Rags doesn't talk.

The next time Virgil appears, John asks about this purpose that Azazel is hinting at. Virgil keeps unapologetically mum on the topic, but at least he's open about keeping his lips zipped.

 _Eh, what happens, happens. Trust me on that. This is one place you don't want to start fucking with causality. You do that, and an effect might bite you in the ass a hundred years ago._

John says he'll keep that in mind. The pain never goes away, but it abates. Having someone to talk to, even if that person may not be playing straight with him, is a lifeline. If not for this respite, he knows he would have accepted Alastair's offer years ago.

John has no idea how long this will last, though. He isn't sure why Alastair keeps sending him back here.

 _Just don't tell them about me, and they'll keep on doing it. My guess is, they think they're sending you into solitary._

John thanks the Cooler King for his input. This place is hardly solitary. There are a number of personalities there. A few seem curious about him. A few have wanted to destroy him. Except for Virgil, though, few of them approach. This is most likely because of the swift and giant presence of Rags, who has taken to circling like a barracuda in the darkness beneath.

As far as John can tell, none of them are human. He thinks he hears human-like cries of pain further through the network of hooked chains that criss-cross this place like a million tripwires.

John has always assumed that this is simply another part of hell. A place to put people when Alastair has other things to do.

 _Yeah, that's what he thinks, too_. As he often does, Virgil sounds unbearably smug.

Before John can react, Virgil fades back once more, singing badly simply because he _can_.

Jimmy Cliff! John shouts into the surrounding redness. Virgil laughs and there's the impression of a double thumbs-up.

Rags even stops its incessant circling in the underneath to pay attention to the exchange.

 _You figure it out yet?_ Virgil calls out. He sounds as if he is a continent and a century away.

Yes. They're sitting here in Limbo.

 _Just like the song says_ , mon ami!

Gleaning this fragment of knowledge feels alarmingly like a victory, even though John has no idea what Limbo is or what that means. Virgil either cannot hear or is choosing to ignore his demands for an explanation.

John either hears or remembers the sound of a baseball hitting a wall over and over again. Virgil is nowhere to be heard. He may show up a few minutes from now, or it may be years.

John has been left to figure it out on his own, as always. If they weren't such a valuable distraction, Virgil's riddles would be maddening.

More and more, he's starting to wonder if he knows Virgil from somewhere, or if that is yet another confused memory.

Lately, he has started remembering twelve-year-old Sam dead in Flagstaff, torn to bits by a hellhound.

He still can't remember, but Rags drifts higher and closer. Rags isn't exactly comforting, with its cold, pulsing rage, but the focused anger helps him focus and bear down on the fact that Sam cannot be dead. Azazel has _plans_ for Sam.

Rags seems upset by this. Instead of the usual rage, John thinks he feels a flicker of confusion that is not too far removed from grief and regret.

He can sympathize.

For years, he thought that finding out the demon's plans would help him save his boys. He would save them, and he would make the demon pay for what it did to Mary. And for what it did to so many other people.

If he died doing that, then so be it. As long as the boys were okay, his own life didn't matter.

He didn't even get that much. At the end, he could only tell Dean that he had to save Sam. Or kill him.

Maybe this is what Limbo is for, he thinks, even if Alastair doesn't know it. It is a place where he can torture himself with his own thoughts.

He knows the truth, but the truth did not set him--or his boys--free.


	5. Part Five

**2006**

"How do you know all that? Who the hell are you?" If John could have, he'd have reached right through the phone line and shaken the bastard until he choked up the truth. All of it.

"The same way I knew you were in Jericho, Mr. Aframian. And the same way I knew you'd be at this number around this time. Do apologize to Miss Moseley for me--I didn't mean to be a bother, but I don't have your cell phone number and I don't want to attract the wrong sort of attention from our brethren by calling around for it. You remember what happened the _last_ time we spoke, don't you?"

Missouri took a couple of good long steps back from John and the phone.

"Yeah. I remember. What _was_ that?"

"Damned if I know, actually." Whoever it was paused to take another drink, even though he already sounded pretty well lubricated. "Right now, I'm just poking it with a stick, to see what happens. The last time we talked, I lost my chimney cap and a cedar. It was a very nice cedar."

"This isn't a game, you asshole. This is my boys' lives we're talking about right now! Tell me right now what else you know or I swear I'll--"

"Get a pen and paper. You'll need it."

John blinked in surprise, but held out his hand to Missouri. She seemed highly offended at his assumption that she would pluck the information she needed right from his head, but she did give get him a pen and piece of paper.

"Ready? The only names I'm sure of for certain are Holly and Vince Parker. Then there are Emily and Rick McCausland and Lanette and Darryl Washington. That took a little bit of digging, but I'm fairly sure I'm right."

John took down the names. Parker. McCausland. Brooks. None of them rang any bells. "Great. Thanks. What do they have to do with the demon?"

He heard a low chuckle. "Nothing directly, but as it turns out, this will be the first time your boys meet... crackle... nasty piece of work... _sputter_... and here we go, surprise, surprise. Sam meets... _ccccreeeeEEEEE_ \--"

At the first sign of rising feedback, John yanked the phone away from his ear and pushed the 'end' button as fast as he could.

"Who the hell was that?" he demanded.

Missouri let out a long sigh. Apparently she no longer saw any point in warning him about his language.

"I know you think I've been telling tales, John, but I swear I have not told that poor, doomed soul a single thing about you."

 

 **1985**

Jim Murphy had not been in Blue Earth, Minnesota as promised. It wasn't often he was away, the housekeeper at the rectory told him, but he was off visiting a friend today. She also asked if John was there for pastoral counseling or--she wrinkled her nose--'that _other_ stuff.'

Upon being told the latter, she sighed, then told John to head out on Highway 90 for another two hours and change until he was past downtown Sioux Falls. Then there was then a convoluted set of instructions on how to get to where Father Murphy was staying.

With the kids, the trip took nearly three and a half hours. There was the inevitable potty break. Then a stop for lunch. Then a U-turn so they could go back to the restaurant to retrieve Sam's shoes. Then another potty break a half-hour later.

To top things off, John got lost and found himself driving up and down along a stretch of two-lane highway while Dean kept asking over and over and over again where they were going and when they would get there and could they do something else because he was _bored_... John would have told him to shut up, but the memory of Dean's recent return to silence was too fresh. He could put up with the whining for a little while longer.

Salvation came at last in the form of a tow truck making a turn out of a driveway that was hidden from view by a clump of weeds. It wasn't until he turned that he saw the number on the mailbox. He also saw a big sign reading SINGER SALVAGE.

John groaned. The housekeeper had given him an address, but hadn't named the place. He had heard stories about the proprietor of Singer Salvage and he had a nasty feeling he had been set up to meet not just one but two of _the_ experts on demons while looking and smelling like someone who'd been dragged backwards through an unlicensed day-care center.

They rattled down the gravel driveway and Dean looked on in awe at the stacks of wrecked cars lining the way on either side of them. John got a glimpse of how his eyes sparkled and tried not to think of stitches and tetanus shots, and how they were as scary as demons in their own way.

Two men sat on the porch of the big, ramshackle old house at the end of the drive. One stayed in the shadows of the porch, glaring at him. The other stood up and came down to greet him as if truly glad to be making his acquaintance.

John's eyes narrowed in automatic suspicion when he noticed the Roman collar. In this case, though, the clerical shirt and collar were paired with jeans and well-worn workboots. John decided to shelve his distrust for the moment.

"Hello--you must be John. I'm Jim Murphy. Daniel's been telling me about you. He tracked me down here after he tried to get hold of me at the rectory. He said you would probably be showing up here, and to tell you he's sorry he wound up sending you the long way around. It's a pleasure to meet you."

The priest sounded sincere even though John was half asleep on his feet, had McNugget sauce all over his shirt and jeans, a screaming and squirming toddler who needed a diaper change _badly_ slung under one arm and an over-tired six-year-old who would. not. shut. up. running around like a maniac just out of reach.

"Nice to meet you, Father Mur--Dean! You get back here right now!"

Dean had spotted the dog chained up by the back steps and had dashed off to pet the nice big rottweiler with the big spiky collar and the missing eye.

Dean skidded to a halt the instant John called out, windmilling his arms to keep balance.

"Patton's okay, kid," the other man told Dean. Instead of saying hello as Jim Murphy had, he had studied John with a deep suspicion he didn't bother hiding. "Just hold out your hand to let him sniff, first."

When Dean gave John a pleading look, John nodded. Dean grinned and took off. He practically shoved his hand in the poor dog's face.

The other man finally got up and came down from the porch, introducing himself as Bobby Singer. He didn't look at all like what John had expected, but then John probably didn't look like what Bobby would have expected, either.

"You look like you could use a drink," Singer said. He didn't even try to seem friendly about the offer.

Still, he held out a flask to John, and John tried not to be too desperate about grabbing it. As if to drive home the point that the day needed a total do-over, John got a mouthful of lukewarm water instead of whiskey.

He spluttered (Sam squawked at getting wet) but most of the water went down his throat. "What the hell was that for!"

Singer held out his hand for the flask. As John handed it back, he noticed that the flask had some interesting engravings on it.

"Just some holy water," Singer said with unconvincing innocence. "By way of welcome."

It was only now that John remembered hearing through the grapevine that Bobby Singer's paranoia made the Nixon White House look like a bunch of Pollyannas.

"If you were possessed by a demon, you would have done more than just a spit take, John," Father Murphy said, extending his hand. "And please, call me Jim."

The hair, the beard, the collar, and even the casual 'call me Jim' schtick reminded John of his Camp Pendleton days and some of the war protesters from UCSD. His first assumption was that this was someone who didn't know a damned thing about what it cost to keep people safe, but there was steel in his grip and behind that gentle smile.

"And you still look like you could use that drink. A real one, this time." Singer stood up. "C'mon inside, and tell your kid to stop torturing my damn dog."

Dean was having a great time wrestling with Patton, who looked like he was ready to surrender. At a word from John, he stopped and ran to the door to wait for the grownups.

Sam's squirming became full-on contortions, and an all-too-familiar smell got John square in the face, reminding him of the overdue diaper change. He sighed and told the others to go on in while he dealt with Sam. The whiskey would have to wait just a little bit longer. He really, really hoped this detour was worth all the trouble. Father Murphy--Jim--seemed okay, but if he hadn't been visiting, John had a feeling that Singer would have simply run him and the boys off his property.

The hood of the Impala wasn't much of a changing table, but Sam was used to it. John wasn't sure _he_ would ever be, and he tried to remember just how the hell Mary had toilet trained Dean. It couldn't be too early to start with Sam, could it?

Once he was cleaned up and changed, Sam stopped whining and looked around curiously as John led him through this strange and wonderful new place. When he saw Patton he screeched out "Doggie! Wanna see the doggie!" and nearly wriggled his hand free of John's grip.

John and the Rottweiler exchanged longsuffering glances, and John kept on walking and kept hold of Sam. John braced himself for a tantrum, but before Sam could figure out that they weren't going to stop to pet the doggie, they were inside Singer's house. Sam's eyes went wide. So did John's.

Inside was just as ramshackle as outside, and every spare bit of space was crammed with books. Some of the titles were in alphabets John didn't even recognize.

John had filled twelve pages in his journal with hard-won information over the past year, and he was damned proud of those twelve pages. At least he had been up until now.

"Dad! C'mere! Lookit all this stuff!" Dean called out from another room. If he was still bothered by yesterday's salt and burn or last night's near-accident, there wasn't a trace of it to be heard.

At the sound of his brother's voice, Sam demanded to go to him. The instant John let go of his hand, he trotted off towards Dean at frightening speed.

"Don't touch anything!" Singer called out. He cleared them some space at the kitchen table. Like every other place John could see, the books had taken over. Here, though, there were a few whiskey bottles interspersed among the piles. "The place ain't exactly kid-proofed, but your ankle-biters should be safe enough. There's nothing dangerous in there."

"Dad! Daaaa-aad! C'mere! You gotta see this! He's got a _sword_ in here!"

"'Nothing dangerous,' Bobby?" Jim chided before John could say something much more profane.

Singer shrugged. "Nothing _lethal_. That thing ain't sharp. Worst that'll happen is he'll bash his foot." He paused. "Hold on. The kid can't read Daedric runes, can he?"

The three men abandoned the kitchen and went to the living room before any havoc could be wrought.

Dean was tearing through the living room, eagerly inspecting all the junk piled everywhere while Sam toddled after him wherever he went. John hoped Sam didn't start messing with the books. He didn't know how to read, but he did know how to rip paper.

"I wouldn't have brought them, but I didn't have much choice. You got a place where I can put them down for a nap out of harm's way and out of earshot? What I want to talk about, I don't want them to hear," John said.

Singer studied him for a moment. "Yeah, there's couple of spare bedrooms. You can park 'em there for a little bit."

There was a definite emphasis on the last couple of words, but John had to ignore that for the moment because Dean declared that he did not need a nap. He wanted to keep exploring, and then he wanted to go see all the junked cars.

"I don't recall giving you a choice," John snapped. "Upstairs, now, and you keep an eye on your brother."

"Yessir." Dean mumbled. He headed upstairs as told.

Singer snorted with laughter. "Wish my dog was that obedient. You've got your pick of rooms up there--shouldn't be anything more dangerous in them other than a few years' worth of dust."

Dust aside, the rooms still seemed like a luxury after over a year of motels. John got the boys settled quickly enough. For all of Dean's protests, his eyes started to drift closed as soon as John plunked him on the bed and helped him get his shoes off. There were two beds in the room, but John knew better than to put Sam in the other bed--Dean would just move if he did.

"If you need to, the three of you can crash here tonight," Singer said in a manner that had a quiet 'and then get the hell out' pinned to the end. So, the guy wasn't a fan of kids.

Fair enough. After the past several hours, John wasn't sure he was either.

They went back into the kitchen and Singer poured a round of drinks. There was no question it would be straight whiskey this time--no holy water, no salt, no nonsense.

"So Daniel said I was looking for you?" John asked after knocking back his shot. It had been a rough twenty-four hours, and the whiskey took the edge off quite nicely.

Jim nodded. "Yes. And I think I can help you out. I already have a few people in mind I can call."

"Good. That's good to hear." John knew better than to count on anything, but the relief was overwhelming.

"I can hardly begin to imagine what you must have been going through," Jim said. It was more wry than sympathetic, with a tug at his collar that it took John a moment to interpret.

"Demon killed my wife," he told Singer, in case Jim hadn't filled him in.

For the first time since they'd met, Singer regarded him without a trace of hostility or suspicion. He thought something over for a moment, then poured John another drink.

"Welcome to the club," he said simply. "Sucks, don't it?"

John raised his glass and clinked it against Singer's. There was really nothing else that needed to be said.

"I also think it might have done something to Sam. That's my youngest. I'm trying to find out what."

"He's not possessed, if that's what you're worried about," Singer said. "The Devil's Trap under the doormat would have stopped the little bugger in his tracks when you came inside. It wouldn't have hurt him, so you can stop glaring at me like you want to skin me."

"Damn. You're just as paranoid as the stories say."

Jim laughed, but Singer just scowled.

"It keeps me alive," he said.

"But what if Sam--or anyone else--had _been_ possessed, but wasn't any more?" John asked. "What about then?"

The two demon experts exchanged looks.

"That would be a little harder to determine without a clairvoyant or other sensitive getting involved," Jim said. "I assume you've--"

"Missouri Moseley."

Both men nodded in recognition. John filled them in on some (but by no means all) of what Missouri had been able to tell him about Sam and about himself.

"And what about the other boy?" Singer asked the question that had been quietly eating away at John for over a year. "What's his name again?"

"Dean. And nothing as far as she could tell." It wasn't quite true, but it was close enough until he knew just how much he could trust these men.

If there was one thing he had learned about hunters over the past year, it was that the only hunter he could completely trust was himself.

Jim Murphy was half-lost in thought. "What you're telling me about Sam changes things considerably," he murmured. He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and studied it. From what John could see, it seemed to be a list of names and numbers. There were five, but Jim hunted around the clutter on the table until he found a pen, and he crossed off three of the names. "These are the people you should call. "I already told Betty Fazio that you might be calling her, and while I tried to get hold of Dave and Lati--"

"So these people might know something about what happened to Sam? Or what killed my wife and maybe my grandmother?" John looked at the names, including the crossed-out ones. Some of them sounded familiar, as if he'd heard them before in passing. Could he really be this close to an answer?

Jim and Singer stared at him across the kitchen table.

"Come again?" Singer asked. " _Grandmother?_ "

"I don't know why Daniel left that part out--we were just talking about it the other day. To make a long story short, it's starting to look like my grandmother was killed by the same thing that killed Mary. He said you might be able to help me," he said, turning to Jim, who was beginning to look darkly amused by something, "given that my grandmother was killed on church property."

Singer gave a snort of laughter. "Might be Jim could help you, but that's not what Elkins called him here about."

"No. He told me you needed help with your boys."

"Yes," John said. He dragged a hand across his face, but it did nothing to clear the fear and confusion. "That more than anything else. Look, this isn't easy for me to talk about..."

What could he say? That he needed them to fix whatever some demon had done to Sam? Or that he wanted Dean to be back the way he was before he learned to mask his thoughts with silence or false cheer?

There was nothing that could be done to bring Mary back, but there was hope for his boys. If he asked, and if the answer was 'no,' if they told him there was no hope...

Jim looked truly pained, as if he honestly did understand what John was going through. "I know it's not easy, but like I said, I can help you."

John slumped in his chair. He hadn't realized just how much he had been counting on this man being able to do something. "Oh, thank God..."

"Indeed," Jim said wryly. "I may not have children, but I can understand how worried you must be. Daniel told me some of your history, but he hadn't told me that something may have affected your youngest boy. Even so, he and his brother should be safe living with any of the people on that list I just gave you. They'll look after your boys for you no matter how long it takes, make sure they grow up in a real home--"

John's entire body went tense even though he remained slumped in his chair. Singer went on the alert at once, and Jim blinked and sat back, clearly knowing he had just said something very, very wrong.

"I beg your pardon?" John was amazed he was able to speak so calmly.

"I can see there's been some miscommunication," Jim said. Again, his voice was calm and placating, but John heard that ring of steel. "You did tell Daniel you needed help, correct?"

"Yes. But not _this_ kind of help." Not even after the kind of day he just had with the kids.

"Misunderstanding," Singer suggested.

John didn't believe it for a moment. He and Daniel had argued about this too many times.

Kids shouldn't grow up alongside hunters. They shouldn't know anything about the life. They should have no part of the life. Daniel had been adamant. Part of him could hear Mary agreeing with him.

But his kids would not grow up not knowing their only surviving family. He was all they had left. They were all _he_ had left. Mary might want them safe, but she wouldn't want them growing up with strangers.

"You'll still need a place to stash 'em if a hunt takes you deep into no-man's-land. And at some point you've gotta do something about school," Singer pointed out. He poured himself another drink. "So Elkins played you. Big deal. He played Jim, too. That's what Elkins _does_ , and you would've found that out one way or another, eventually. Look at it this way. At least you've got a list of babysitters you can use when you're going someplace you can't take the rugrats."

John had already balled up the list, but instead of leaving it on the table and storming upstairs to get his kids and get the fuck out as he'd been about to do, he slipped it into his pocket. Singer was right. He would need _some_ kind of help until the kids were older. If he was going to get angry, he would save it for the person who deserved it.

It was kind of funny--Daniel had been the one to tell John the only hunter he could trust was himself. Now, he'd just found a way to drive that lesson home. It didn't matter that he had meant well.

It took a good half hour for the tension to dissolve, but after that, the time passed quickly and John ended up learning more more about demonology in one hour than he had over the past year.

"There's not many hunters who specialize in demons," Singer told him. "For one thing, demons are rare. There might be jumps in activity every so often--decades apart, or even longer--but most hunters go their whole lives without ever running across one. Once you do cross paths with one of the bastards, though..."

Singer got up and went straight to a slender book that didn't look that different from all the other books stacked in the far corner of the kitchen. He tossed the book to John. The first thing John noticed was that it was very old. The second thing he noticed was that it was not in English.

"Rituale Romanum. The old version. The rite you want's in the thirteenth section in that book. Learn it. It'll work better if you know Latin, but even if you mangle the pronunciation and have no idea what the hell it is you're saying, it'll work okay."

John nodded. He flipped through the book, and wasn't sure he could even tell where the thirteenth section began. For the first time in a long time, he thought about all those prayers his father had been forced to memorize, and Mary's reaction when John had told her his father used to know Latin.

Had Mary ever learned this ritual? If she had, would it have made any difference that night?

"I'll walk you through with a translation," Jim said, "and make sure you have a decent grasp of the essential parts before I leave here tonight."

"I'm not complaning, but why the hurry?" John asked. Speaking of hurrying, he thought heard the first sounds of Dean getting restless.

"Like I said, most hunters can go their whole life without ever running into a demon. Once you run into one, though, you find you _keep_ running into them." Singer winced as a _thump_ and a yell came from upstairs. "Guess that's my cue to get supper started."

John excused himself and said he'd look after the boys. Sam was sound asleep, but Dean was awake and rested, and he protested mightily when John pulled him into a too-tight hug.

Dinner (Tuna Helper and a distinct absence of vegetables) was strangely comfortable, despite the fact that he was eating with a priest and a man who seemed to be a professional curmudgeon. Maybe it was because the boys seemed comfortable, in a way they rarely did around anyone who wasn't him.

Jim was remarkably patient with Sam, and Sam actually seemed to pay attention when Jim talked to him at a level that John knew must have sailed right over his head. As for Dean, he drilled Singer about everything under the sun--his dog, that sword in his living room, all the wrecked cars in the lot, _everything_. He did his best to talk the man into letting him play with some of the heavy machinery out back, and Singer had too much fun letting John think that he might actually let the boy have a turn using the car-cruncher.

Jim and John swapped stories that skirted around some of what John's dad had gone through as a kid. John was relieved that Jim didn't try to explain away or excuse what Mary Alice had done, and he was amused to learn that rectory housekeepers were scarier than nuns and had in fact been known to eat nuns for breakfast.

He had a feeling his dad would have liked Jim Murphy, priest or not.

Once the boys had been put to bed, Singer and Jim drilled John on the exorcism rite. He didn't get it memorized, but they at least got him to a point where he wasn't stumbling over the words.

Eventually, Jim said he had to hit the road. Singer didn't even bother asking him if he'd rather crash for the night, and Jim didn't seem to mind not being asked. Still, they managed to get caught up in shop talk while Jim stood with his keys out and car door open. After fifteen minutes of standing on the sidelines, John said a curt good night and went back into the house to check on the boys.

Both boys were sound asleep, and in the same bed as he'd expected, but Dean was splayed out across the foot of the bed like a starfish while Sam was curled up tight against the pillow and was contentedly gnawing his fist in his sleep. Usually, Dean would crack an eye open when John came to check on him, but his deep, slow breathing continued without a hitch.

He hadn't seen them sleep like this for a very long time. Not since Lawrence.

John just stood there and watched for he didn't know how long, and eventually Singer came up behind him.

"What's it like, having kids?" he asked.

"Terrifying," John said. "I keep wondering if I'm doing the right thing."

"You've kept 'em alive, haven't you?"

They went back downstairs to Singer's living room, and Singer got out another bottle of whiskey. John knew he had been drinking way too much for a long time now, but that was something he could always worry about later. For now, he would cling to anything that gave him any kind of sanity.

"I'll say this up front, Winchester. Elkins is a manipulative asshole. Always thinks he knows better than anyone else. Now, he's a good hunter, and he's also a good man deep down, but one thing I've learned over the years is that you can be a good man and still be an asshole." He sighed, then sat down behind his monster of a desk. "I don't suppose it'll mean squat if I tell you his intentions were probably good."

John settled back on the couch, drink in hand. "He and Matt helped me out a lot when I needed it most. I'll owe him forever for that. But I can't trust him." He sipped at the drink rather than slam it down. He turned a few things over in his mind. "I suppose I haven't really trusted Daniel for a while."

It wasn't just the boys and the stunt Daniel had pulled with Jim Murphy. There was something Daniel kept talking around or kept stopping short of, something John thought might have slipped out during that first time when Daniel had called him while shit-faced drunk.

"Everyone has secrets," Singer said, even though John had not said anything about what he was thinking. "Especially hunters."

"Including you?"

Singer just looked at him as if he was deeply stupid.

"It goes with the territory. Things you've seen, things you've done..." He seemed to focus on something else for a moment. "A fuckton of mistakes. That's the worst of it, the mistakes and the regrets. But either you keep learning, and you keep going, or you end up getting killed and maybe taking a lot of other people with you."

John nodded. "I'll consider myself warned."

There was still a strong thread of mutual suspicion, but John was starting to think that Singer maybe could be a friend. One of those friends that was sometimes hard to like, but a friend all the same. There was something here that reminded him of how he and Deacon had butted heads all through basic, and then one night decided they were the best of buddies and stayed that way all the way through the end.

"Did you ever find the thing that killed your wife?" he asked after a few minutes of semi-comfortable silence.

Singer leaned back in his chair, and folded his arms across his chest. His face was stone-still, and he studied John for a good, long while.

"You don't know me well enough to ask me that, Winchester."

"You welcomed me to the club," John reminded him. "I told you about Mary."

Singer glared at him, then muttered a curse and tossed back the rest of his drink. "It wasn't hard," he snarled, "given that the bastard who stabbed her is sitting right here in this chair."

John knew that anything he said right then would be either way too much or not nearly enough.

"I didn't know what was going on. All I know was that one minute I'm having breakfast, and the next, Karen is screaming like a banshee and going for my throat. I guess her eyes must have gone black, but I don't know if I saw that or filled it in after."

John nodded. He knew how that sort of memory trick worked.

"Anyhow, she's trying to kill me and somehow I get hold of a knife." Singer stared off into a far corner of the room, no doubt looking for someone who was no longer there. "Jury's still out on whether I got real lucky or unlucky with that."

"What happened to the demon?" John said when he felt it was safe to ask.

"Rufus Turner happened to it. He got here just a shade too late. He said the exact same ritual Jim and I taught you, and the demon vanished in a puff of smoke straight back to Hell. Hopefully it'll stay there."

John thought about all the things that Singer wasn't saying. If he hadn't grabbed the knife. If this Rufus person had showed up a few minutes earlier. If, if, if... Would Singer still have had a normal life, afterwards, or would everything have changed all the same?

"Wait... back to Hell, and you hope it stays there? I thought the exorcism killed the demon." That's what he'd assumed all through their lessons.

"Nope. Wish it did, but it doesn't. It just drives them out of the body and sends 'em back to Hell. Dunno if it keeps them there."

John thought back to a talk he'd had with Daniel, and the way his eyes narrowed when Matt chimed in about some legend he had heard about from some other hunter.

"I've heard a few stories about there being something out there that can actually _kill_ a demon."

Singer snorted with laughter. "Yeah. Me too. Some legendary gun created by Samuel Colt himself. Hunters tell each other stories about that thing the way they might tell their kids about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Course, when you dig deep enough, you find out that jolly old Santa and Little Bunny Foo Foo have their roots in some very real and very dark shit."

"So you're saying it might be out there."

"I'm saying it could be, and I'm also saying you're hardly the first hunter to think about it. Before you go chasing off after things that may not be real, or may be real in a way you won't like, make sure you know what to do to keep yourself safe in the meantime. Getting yourself killed doing something stupid won't help your boys none."

John nodded. Getting the thing that had killed Mary would remove the greatest danger to his boys, but there were so many other things out there that could get them. Even a piddly little ghost like Millicent could have killed Dean with one of those rocks she was flinging around.

Keeping them safe was the important thing. He thought about that list in his pocket, and he also thought about how once you encountered a demon, you were liable to keep encountering them as if you'd picked up some sort of recurring infection.

He wasn't sure what to do, or why the idea of leaving his boys with strangers felt wrong in a way that had nothing to do with safety.

"Like it or not, and I don't think you do, your kids are already in the life," Singer said. "At some point you've got to teach them to survive it."

John nodded and said he was beyond exhausted. Singer wished him a gruff good night and made no move to get up from his seat, instead picking a huge book that looked like it was in Chinese or Japanese.

John shook the dust from the old bedspread in his chosen room and lay down to try to sleep. His mind whirled for a good long while as he tried to think of what he should do.

His boys had already crossed paths with a demon, but to what degree? Sam had seen something. So had Dean, according to Missouri. But was that enough to infect? To contaminate?

For now, he would teach Dean what he needed to do to keep himself and Sam safe. If he thought a hunt might involve a demon (it was only a matter of time), he could park the boys somewhere safe.

Maybe when Dean was older, he might be able to look after Sam for a few days at a time if worse came to worst. After all, John had looked after himself a lot from a young age--by the time he could put together a sandwich and manage his own wash, his mom was no longer able to do either. It wasn't ideal, but it was what he had to do. He had survived.

Slowly, the whirl in his brain began to quiet. Somehow, he would make this work. Maybe not well, but it would work.

For the first time in a long time, John felt himself able to relax. Singer's house might be a dump, but it still felt good to have had a sit-down meal in a real kitchen, and to be sleeping in a real bedroom. It had been good for the boys, too, and as he slid from drowsiness into dreams, he wondered if maybe Elkins had the right idea after all.

For once, he didn't dream about November second. It was one of those dreams that felt like waking up and starting your day. He was in a house that was both Singer's house and the house in Lawrence at the same time. He thought he could hear Mary singing down in the kitchen, so he went downstairs to find her.

He said good morning to Singer, who was sitting at the kitchen table listening to one of Uncle Jack's stories. Singer's retorts of 'bullshit!' only prompted Uncle Jack to embroider the stories even more, and John smiled, because that was how things should have been.

Mary wasn't there, but the singing came from the living room, so John went there. As soon as he entered the room, the song started coming from outside, but John halted before he stepped on a piece of tiny railroad track. A model train zigged and zagged around the stacks of books and junk. He knew that train. Both Dean and Sam were on their bellies and watching raptly as the little train chug-chug-chugged around bends and over trestles.

Just as he should have been, John's dad sat cross-legged on the floor, manning the switches for the train.

"Morning, son," he said. "It's about time you woke up." At a plea from Dean, he made the train go even faster. He beamed at his grandsons, and John couldn't remember seeing him any happier than he was right then.

Before John could say anything, he woke up, and the knowledge that his dad _wasn't_ there and _wasn't_ downstairs playing with his grandchildren nearly crushed his heart.

In so many ways, the good dreams were worse than the nightmares.

Most mornings, he woke up missing Mary. Those were bad, but just as bad were the ones when he woke up wishing he could talk to his father and ask him what the hell he was supposed to do.

 

 **1981**

The thing that had finally caused John to break down and weep after his father's death was a simple and profound thought:

Dean was going to forget his grandfather.

It hit him as he was talking to Mary about whether or not Dean would remember the babysitter they'd gotten for him. It usually took Dean a few times to remember a new person, but eventually it would sink in. If more than a month went by, though, he would start to forget again.

John's dad had died a month ago. In another month, if anyone asked Dean about Pop-pop, he would look as confused as if he had never met the man, had never sat on his lap or watched raptly as Pop-pop made the model train go round and round the track and loop over the bridge.

It seemed like such a little thing, in comparison to everything else that was lost, but the unfairness of that one little thing was enough to make him double over. Mary went right to his side as if she had been prepared for this. She said nothing and rubbed circles between his shoulders as she waited for him to pull himself back together.

"You don't know for sure he'll forget, John. There things I've been sure I've forgotten from when I was little, but they come back." She smiled, but she didn't look too far from tears herself. "Even things from before I could talk, I think. Memory's a funny thing."

Maybe it was. Stray memories kept bushwhacking him when he wasn't expecting it, and he could never quite figure out why they hit him when they did. The smell of mothballs reminded him of his dad sitting him down then crouching down to eye level to explain that it was _very_ important he be a good little boy and always do what he was told, because his mom would have a hard time chasing after him. The sound of a cast iron pan skidding on a burner brought to mind Sunday morning breakfasts, and the way his dad sat back and smiled with smug contentment over his coffee when he heard the church bells off in the distance.

They were things he didn't even know he remembered until the memory replayed itself. Maybe, years from now, some random sound would make Dean think of model trains and a cozy afternoon spent with an old man who thought the sun rose and set on him.

"I was thinking that maybe we should bring Uncle Jack by for supper this weekend," Mary said after he started becoming restless at being comforted. "It'll do him good to see Dean, I think."

John nodded. There was part of him that feared his father's sudden death would also mean losing Uncle Jack. The news had sent Uncle Jack to the hospital wing of the nursing home, but that wasn't what worried John.

Just the simple thought, abstract and removed, of losing Dean was enough to make John's heart freeze inside him. Would Uncle Jack be the same man he was just a handful of weeks ago? Or would he be a stranger, broken by grief? It was a completely selfish thought, but it was enough to make his stomach churn.

Later that night, while Mary was getting Dean ready for bed, John got out the wooden cigar box that his father had used to store a few personal mementoes that he didn't care to relegate to a photo album or a neatly labeled box in the basement. The box mostly held photographs, but John's mother's wedding and engagement rings were also in there, along with a rosary with a stout little cross and heavy black beads.

There were several pictures of John's mother, of course. One picture of her as a teenager in a party dress, exhausted and exhilerated after a dance, surprised him--he had so few memories of her being active, and it was the first time he had ever seen himself in her.

Some of the photos brought an ache of memory with them. Others simply reminded him of how little he'd known his mother, and hurt all the more for reminding him of what she--and he--had been robbed of.

Most of the other pictures were much older, and many were fragile and faded. There was one of John's grandfather and Uncle Jack, recognizeable as brothers by their heavy brows and the shapes of their noses. One was wiry, though, and the other burly, and the way they stood next to each other and grinned, you knew that you would be screwed if the two ever decided to team up against you.

John grinned at the picture of his grandfather awkward and self-conscious in his army uniform. Then there was another picture of him that upped the ante on the awkwardness and self-consciousness as he held his infant son. He looked terrified, and John imagined he had looked the same way himself when the doctor had put Dean in his arms for the first time.

There were very few photos of father and son together. Even though John's father was nearly seven years old when the war started, he only had a few scattered memories of his own father. Sometimes, John wondered if those memories were simply memories of the stories Uncle Jack had told and not memories of the man himself.

Then, there was another picture, this one of Mary Alice holding her baby boy. She was grinning for the camera as if having given birth to this child was an elaborate prank she had just played on the entire universe. She didn't look like a woman who would be terrified at the idea of her son going unbaptized. There was a spark in her eye that said she would be more likely to laugh at the lengths her son went to in order to avoid church than to scream at him for an hour straight and smack him across the face over and over until one of the neighbors called Uncle Jack, and he kicked in the front door, grabbed her arm and forced her to stop.

His dad had never liked to talk about his mother all that much.

Sometimes, though, he'd let slip a wistful memory of one of the good times. Decorating the Christmas tree. Helping him write a letter to send to a father he barely remembered. Using up nearly all of their precious, rationed sugar at once to make a pitcher of lemonade and a 'just because' cake, giggling all the time like a pair of conspirators.

And then, there were all the photos of her he had saved and had obviously looked at often.

There was one more picture of his dad with Mary Alice in the box. The edges were worn as if the photo had been well-handled. According to the neat, elegant handwriting on the back, the photograph commemorated his father's first day of school. Mary Alice was holding his hand and smiling down at him the way Mary would smile at Dean. In her other hand, she held the same rosary that John had found in the cigar box. As for his dad, he looked up at his mother with a broad grin that had no first-day-of-school jitters about it.

John looked at the photo for a while, then put it back. He pulled out the last photo, this one of Mary Alice all by herself. It reminded him of the picture of her sitting on her steamer trunk, only this one had her sitting on the steps of their old house. She was several years older in this picture, her hair was rakishly mussed, and her apron had a big stain right down the front of it, but the I-dare-you smile was the same one.

After a minute or two, he called his uncle.

"Hey, Johnny." He sounded quite pleased to hear from John, but also so very, very tired. He also sounded out of breath, which was not unusual these days. "What's the occasion?"

"Not much. I was just thinking about you, and thought I'd give you a call. See how you were doing."

"Uh-huh." Skeptical, and maybe a little amused. That was a relief to hear after the bleak listlessness of the past few weeks. "Make sure I'm not dying and maybe ask me a few questions, right? So what is it, kiddo?"

"Just..." He picked up the first day of school photo again. "I was looking through some of dad's old stuff, and some of the photos he had of you and his parents."

"Ahh... Yes."

Until he heard that wistfulness, it had never really sunk in before that the people in these old photos were the people that Uncle Jack had known and loved. The photos would bring back memories of voices, of moments, of thoughts, of... everything.

"There were some pictures of Dad with his mom." Funny, how he more often thought of her as 'Mary Alice' or his dad's mother than as his grandmother. The same could be said of his grandfather. He was Jimmy Winchester or Uncle Jack's kid brother or his dad's father. It was hard to think of them as 'family.' They were more like familiar ghosts that rarely left the attic. "I'm kind of surprised he hung on to them. She didn't sound like she was a very good mother."

"She wasn't, not in the end." Uncle Jack turned his head away from the phone for a moment to cough or maybe to collect his thoughts. "She loved George, though, loved him more than anything, and maybe that's the problem. All that stuff she started believing was tied up in that love, and that just made it all worse."

"You mean the salt and the prayers and all that?"

"That's not even the half of it." Sometimes, that phrase would be a lead-in to a long, rambling story. This time, it was a curt signal that there wouldn't be any more information on that front.

"Your dad did a good job with you, Johnny. A real good job." Uncle Jack sounded more and more shaky as he spoke, and John felt a stab of fear at just how _old_ he was, now. "He worked hard at it."

John swallowed hard. It took him a moment before he could speak again. "Yeah. He did."

"There were times I thought he was maybe being too strict with you, but I guess he didn't know what else to do, with Laura being so sick."

"It wasn't so bad," John said.

"Well, he didn't want to become like his mother. He told me once or twice he was afraid he would, especially after Laura died. That doesn't mean he didn't love his mother, though. Love's complicated like that. So's family. There's still times I wish I could go up to Mary Alice and ask her just what the hell was going through her mind. She wasn't always like that, she really wasn't, she was such a good person, and Jimmy..." His voice grew thick and it wasn't just the usual congestion. "Jimmy woulda been heartbroken, to see what she'd become like, and what she was doing to his boy."

"Yeah." John had a suspicion that Uncle Jack hadn't told his brother too much about what had happened while he was gone. Jimmy had been pulled out of the hell of a POW camp only to hear the news that his wife had been murdered, so why add to the pain? He had been broken enough already.

"I did try talking to her," Uncle Jack said, and there was an unfamiliar urgency, as if it was important that John knew he had tried his best. "I tried to stop her, but the more I tried, the more she shut me out, and then one day she was just gone. Up and left without a word, and the way I found out was George walked all the way over to my place at six in the morning still in his pajamas and scared out of his wits. He said he saw her walk off, and that it wasn't his mother any more. He almost made it sound like she said that, actually said that she wasn't his mother, but Mary Alice wouldn't... she'd never say something like that. She loved her little boy more than anything! But the things she did to him... I don't understand. I'll never understand."

John was tempted to hang up, but of course he didn't. Uncle Jack wasn't supposed to cry, said a childish voice deep inside. Uncle Jack was the strong one in the family. He was reason John hadn't felt the lack of a grandfather. He was the one who had helped keep things going for his dad when John's mom was dying.

Who was going to hold things together for _him?_ Or for John?

"I--I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..." He cleared his throat. "Well, anyway. Dad loved her?"

He didn't know why this was so important, but it was. Maybe it was because he was just finding out what a hard job it was to be a parent and was terrified of all the mistakes he knew he was going make.

"Yup. Loved her, and hated her, and was willing to forgive her for everything but vanishing like that." Uncle Jack cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, the usual humor was there. "So don't you go pulling that kind of nonsense on your own kid. You're a good man, Johnny, so don't let him forget who you are."

John laughed at the impossibility of the idea. "I got it," he said. "No disappearing."

 

 **2006**

It took him longer than it should have taken to pin down the connection between the six people this 'Harry' had mentioned. Three married couples, all of whom had vanished without a trace.

Vanishings were all too common in John's line of work, but it could have been anything that had done the vanishing. Too many anythings. Then he lost nearly a week when a potential lead on the demon down in Tulsa turned out to be a poltergeist with a taste for fire.

There was nothing in any of the couples' histories to indicate that they had anything to do with his hunt. None of them had any children. None had been associated with the surges in demon activity in seventy-three or ninety-five.

It took checking their credit receipts to find that all of them had made their last gas purchase somewhere in Indiana. Also, while the couples had been reported as missing throughout at different times later in April, those purchases had all taken place on April seventh, year after year after year. And now it was late March. If this was going to happen again, he didn't have much time to do anything about it. He hit the road and wondered what this hunt might yield.

As for 'Harry' himself, right after leaving Missouri's John left a message for Ellen to ask her if the name rang a bell. He didn't leave much more detail than that, figuring that the stoner kid who answered the Roadhouse phone couldn't be trusted not to blab the information to the wrong person. John also suspected he couldn't be trusted to _remember_ the information long enough to pass it along to Ellen.

Ellen didn't call him back until he was on his way to Indiana after detouring to deal with a demon possession down in Tulsa. Then there was a message on his cell phone after he got out of a much-needed shower. He winced when she said outright that she had a lead on the demon he'd been hunting. She said nothing about 'Harry.'

Or maybe, he thought, 'Harry' was the lead.

He called back right away.

"Harvelle's." She sounded like she wasn't all that happy to be answering the phone.

"Ellen, it's John."

"Thought it might be. I take it you got my message?" Whatever it was, he could tell he wasn't going to like it much. There was a frightening reluctance in the way she spoke.

"Yeah. Did you get mine?"

There was a pause. "Uh, no? When'd you leave it?"

"A week ago. I left it with the guy who picked up the phone. He said you'd gone out on a grocery run."

It was almost enough to make John laugh as Ellen cursed out someone named 'Ash' in more ways that John would have thought possible. Whoever Ash was, John really didn't want to be him just then.

"I called to let you know I heard from my mystery caller again, the one who said he knew Bill. This time, he had a whole bunch of detail about what happened the night Mary was killed. He knew things that I'm damned sure I never told anyone about that night. Stupid details like the fact I was watching an old war movie on TV."

"That _is_ strange. Any more idea who it might be?"

"He called me at Missouri's place. Apparently, he'd been trying to reach me there for days. Missouri called him 'Harry.' Did Bill know anyone by that name?"

There was another pause, and John thought that maybe he'd stepped square onto a sore spot, but then Ellen bust out in the deepest belly laugh he'd ever heard from her.

"Harry? _Harry?_ Oh, dear God. If that's Harry Wagner..." She had to stop to catch her breath, and even after, she broke out into chuckles or even giggles at odd moments. "Harry Wagner. God _damn_. Now there's a name from the past. If it's the Harry I'm thinking of, he's about as psychic as a cinder block. I have no idea how he would've gotten hold of information like that."

"Who is he?"

"Old Navy buddy of Bill's," Ellen said fondly. "They were in Vietnam together, and it was Harry who taught Bill to hunt. He'd pretty much pulled out of active circulation by the time Jo was born. More interested in art than hunting, and I guess he makes out okay doing illustrations and so on."

"You mean he managed to get out of the life?" John asked. He had met hunters who had tried, but he had yet to meet one who completely succeeded.

"Only about as much as any of us can, I suppose. Caleb said Harry helped him out with that wraith in Providence a few years back, and I know he's done more than a few assists with some nasty maritime haunts back east. Funny thing is, I actually met him a few years before I met Bill. I was working out of Fall River at the time, and-- "

It sounded like the beginning of a story he didn't have time to listen to just then. "Ellen..."

"Sorry. Got lost for a moment, there. You know how it goes. These days Harry mostly does research and helps provide cover for folks, sort of like an east coast Bobby Singer. He's also the best damn forger I ever met, and that's saying something. I haven't spoken to him in ages. Not since... He didn't seem to want to have much to do with me, after. Too many memories, or something," she said sadly.

There wasn't anything John could say to that.

"I don't suppose you have his number handy?"

"Not handy, but I should be able to rustle it up. He likes to go unlisted and change up now and again, so it may take a bit. Last I heard, Harry was up on the Cape somewhere. Anyhow, I have some news for you," she went on before John could ask 'Cape _Where?_ '

"It's not good, is it?" He sat down on the motel bed and waited for whatever it was.

"I got word of something that happened out in Stanford. It took a while to get to me, longer than it should have, but--"

"Sam's not _at_ Stanford right now," John said. It was a hope as much as a statement of fact. What if Sam had gone back? What if he and Dean had parted ways after leaving Lawrence, and he went back to that normal life he had prized more than his own family?

"I know he's not. Trust me on that one," Ellen said wryly. "As it turns out, there are some people there who would love to talk to him."

She paused for a moment, and John could picture her steeling herself.

"There was an unexplained fire in one of the off-campus apartments back on November second."

 _No._

"I know what that date means to you, John."

He wanted to be sick. "I saw the weather patterns out there, but Sam had left, so I didn't..." He swallowed hard against a surge of nausea. Sam had been safe, or so he had thought. He hadn't spared a thought for anything else.

Stupid, stupid, so stupid.

"Was anyone hurt?" he asked even though he already knew the answer.

"Yeah. Worse than hurt. Girl by the name of Jessica Moore."

"Oh, god..." John covered his eyes.

They had never met, but he had heard her voice. He had seen her. For a moment, she had looked so damn much like Mary it nearly stopped his heart.

"So you know who she is?" Ellen was wary enough that she probably knew the answer even before John gave it to her.

"Sam's girlfriend. I never met her, but I knew about her."

The one time John had seen her, he had gotten a look at Sam's face. Even from a distance, John could see what was there.

"He was crazy in love with her," he said.

He wanted to go back. He wanted a chance to do this over again, to _pay attention_ to that pattern he dismissed and go back and save that girl from Mary's fate.

"I'm so sorry," Ellen said, and was smart enough not to say anything else about Jessica Moore. "I didn't know you were in touch with Sam. From what you said the last time we talked, I thought you weren't."

"He's my son, Ellen. Of course I kept tabs on him! I should have figured that there'd be other... God damn it!" He had been careless. He had been focusing on Sam, not the people around him, not unless he thought they were a danger. "Is there anything else I need to know, because..."

"Sorry, John," she said with genuine sadness. "Anything else I know you could find out easily enough on the internet or with a phone call or two. You want me to tell you what I've found, or would you rather check for yourself?"

It was a graceful way of letting him make a brusque goodbye without actually hanging up on her.

John sat on the edge of his bed for a long while, slowly turning his ring around and around.

Sam. God damn it.

Sam was too damn young to have to know that kind of loss. John would have done anything to prevent that, but all he had done was let Sam walk right into heartbreak.

He looked down at the ring. Its once bright surface was now dulled with hundreds and thousands of scratches. He raised it to his lips.

"Oh, Mary. I'm so sorry..."

If he lied, they would be safe. That was what he had told himself over and over all these years.

If he stayed quiet, they would be safe. If he was strict, they would be safe. If he was cruel, they would be safe.

Sam might hate him, and Dean might be afraid of him, but if they stayed safe, that was all that mattered.

John wasn't so sure of that anymore.

Once, he had thought that he would be able to explain everything to Sam once the danger was over, but would that ever happen?

He wanted to be a dad to them again, but like so many other things, whatever chance he had was now too little, too late. His boys were men, now. There was nothing to do now but press forward and end this war.

Besides, he reminded himself fiercely as he got up and got dressed and armed again, there was no point in worrying about whether or not they would forgive him.

Time was running out, and forgiveness didn't matter if they were dead or if they had been turned into something evil, something he would no longer recognize.

 

 **1989**

"Do I know you?" John's eyes narrowed. His hand dropped back slightly, easing aside the front of his jacket so he could get to his gun if he had to. He didn't want to start something, not here in a friendly suburban restaurant, but someone cozying up to him out of nowhere right as he was about to get hold of the first real lead he'd had in years set off dozens of alarm bells.

As soon as John sat down, the blond-haired, blue-eyed stranger had gotten up from his booth and just plunked down on the bar stool next to him, an easy grin on his face. He had greeted John by name and with a broad grin, as if they had known each other from way back, and wasn't it a nifty coincidence, meeting like this at the Eleven Mile House?

John didn't believe in coincidence anymore. Still, the man looked familiar, maybe like someone famous, but John couldn't put a finger on who it was.

"Nah," the man said cheerfully. "You don't know me. I'm a friend of Bobby Singer's from way back. He told me you'd be here, and that I should keep an eye out for a sour-faced son of a bitch with dark hair."

John blinked. A number of assumptions sorted themselves into new patterns. "Remind me to kill Bobby next time I see him."

The man lifted an eyebrow in confusion. "I thought he was looking after your boys for you."

"Doesn't mean I can't kill him." He held out a hand to the other man. "You know me, but who the hell are you?"

The man grinned and gave John a nice, firm handshake. Steve McQueen. That's who he reminded John of. He would never be mistaken for McQueen, but he looked like someone McQueen could have played in a movie way back when.

"Bill Harvelle. I usually work out of Nebraska, but I was finishing up a job down in Sikeston and Bobby said you were just up the road in St. Louis and might need some help."

"Did he now?"

Bill shrugged. John's hostility and suspicion just rolled off him. "Well, it was more like 'keep an eye on the idjit for me,' but that's Bobby for you. I can't believe he's looking after your kids. Bobby Singer? Baby sitting? It sounds like the setup for a punchline."

"It's a once in a blue moon thing." Being close to finding out more about the demon had stirred nagging worry back up to full-blown fear. The boys needed more than just a baby sitter right now. They needed a one-man army for John's piece of mind. "Trust me on that one."

"Oh, I do." Bill chuckled, and John suspected he was spinning up whatever joke led up to the whole idea of Bobby looking after someone's kids.

John had met all kinds of hunters in the past fifteen years or so, but this was the first one he'd met who was so relentlessly and genuinely upbeat. Bill ordered a hamburger platter and a Bud and expected John to do the same. The burgers here were very good, Bill said, or so he had been assured by all and sundry. Bill already seemed to be good friends with the bartender, the waitress, and half the regulars even though he had only been there a little longer than John had.

"Anyhow, I don't need help to interview some old priest," John said. He was kind of hungry, though, so he went ahead and ordered some food.

Bill shrugged fluidly. "Maybe not, but I was planning on coming through St. Louis to pick up some stuff for El before heading home, so I figured what the hey, might as well butt in. Besides, Father Tauscher's done a lot of cleanup on haunts and possessions that happened on church property. He's probably got a story or two worth hearing, so I'd have stopped in anyhow. The guy's pushing ninety, so better now than maybe never, right?"

"Was he a hunter?" John was surprised. Bobby had made him sound more like a bureaucrat.

"Nah. The padre wasn't so much a hunter as he was a semi-official meddler and floor-mopper for the folks in Rome."

That made sense. From what Bobby had said, Joseph Tauscher had kept obedient silence for years as to some of the things he had seen and swept under the rug, but when his silence on the matter of a violent ritual murder at a local Catholic school in the 1970s had led to two boys being killed in poltergeist attacks back in February, he had quietly started reaching out to any hunter he could find who might find value in his stories.

One story in particular had made its way to Bobby, who had been quick to pass it along to John.

"Anyways, I'm just here to hear what the guy might have to say in general. Sounds like you're after something specific."

"Yeah." John's irritation was grudgingly giving way to curiosity. Besides, there was something about Bill that was almost impossible not to like. He was the sort of person you'd be tempted to tag along after just to see what happened next. He just wasn't sure he wanted this guy tagging along after _him_. "He may know something about how my grandmother died."

"Ouch." Bill's mouth tightened in a grimace. "How old were you when it happened?"

Their drinks had arrived by then. John drained half his beer in one swallow. "Wasn't born yet. But I'm thinking that maybe whatever killed her also killed my wife."

That got a full-body wince and an offer to pay for the meal.

The hamburgers _were_ excellent, as promised. Bill didn't ask any more questions, but he kept up a relaxed but unbroken stream of narration that filled the time with a sort of pleasant white noise.

John chimed in only a few times, such as when he found out Bill's tour of duty had been about the same time as his own. Bill had been Navy, though, stuck doing river patrol on the Bassac, down along the Cambodian border. Bill already knew John had kids, thanks to Bobby, but John volunteered a couple of stories about them once Bill started talking about his Joanna Beth.

"So, you've got a wife, a kid, and a place to call home. Why the hell do you still hunt, then?"

Bill shrugged and ate the last of his burger. "You ever met anyone who tried to get out of the life once they got in?"

"Yeah."

"Huh. Really? How'd it work out for them?"

John was quiet for a good while. "Mary made it ten years before it caught up with her."

There was nothing more Bill could say to that, so instead he asked if John was going to finish his fries. Then, he paid the bill, leaving a far more generous tip than John would have, and they set off to meet Father Tauscher.

Saint Agnes Home, run by the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus (according to the sign), was just across the way from the Eleven Mile House and its wonderful hamburgers.

The elegant, three-story stone building and its well-tended gardens and old shade trees seemed out of place at an intersection otherwise cornered by strip malls and a car dealership.

John wasn't sure what to expect inside, but his imagination had supplied a bit more gothic than the modern pink and teal décor and helpful receptionists who greeted them warmly. This place was very like where Uncle Jack used to live. The two ladies (very much not nuns) seemed delighted that Father Tauscher had visitors. An actual nun showed up to escort them to the wing that had been dedicated to housing retired clergy. She was pleasant and helpful, and nothing at all like the terrifying creatures in black and white described by his father.

Sister Margaret led them to one of the oldest parts of the building. "It's been wonderful to see Father Tauscher get so many guests recently," she said. "How do you two know him?"

John flailed around for something to say, but Bill was ready with a convoluted yet frighteningly plausible string of bullshit about community service and charity work and how if it were not for the good father's intervention at a critical time during their misspent youths, he and John would probably be doing hard time by now.

"How wonderful for you both!" Sister Margaret said, smiling benevolently. The nuns of his father's stories would have spotted Bill's lie at once and beaten him to death with a ruler. The non-fictional, nice nun led them to a room at the end of the corridor. The door was open.

"He's been looking forward to this all day," she whispered. "It was all he could talk about at lunch. It's been so good to see his spirits up--he had taken the news of the deaths at the Priory School _so_ hard."

An old man sat at a large, cluttered desk. John had no idea how the desk could have gotten in the room without a wall being knocked down.

"Your guests are here, Father," she said before fading back and wishing them a good visit.

The priest peered up at them through thick-lensed glasses that made his dark brown eyes look unnaturally large. Father Tauscher didn't look like a dour and all-powerful bureaucrat or like someone who used to handle nasty and hush-hush cleanup jobs for the Vatican. He was small and bird-boned, and when John introduced himself, the priest tilted his head in a manner that completed his resemblance to a sparrow.

"Winchester, I see..." Father Tauscher waved in the vague direction of an old easy chair. Bill took the chair, leaving John to sit on the ottoman. "Yes, yes, I remember that. Very curious matter. I honestly haven't seen anything like it before or since, except for what happened at Ilchester--oh, that was terrible, yes. Terrible. That one ended up making the news, but things had become ever so much more lax after the Second Vatican Council."

He actually _tut-tutt_ ed.

"She was my grandmother," John felt obliged to point out.

Father Tauscher nodded distractedly. He was more focused on sorting through the folders stacked on his desk. "Yes, yes. I can see the resemblance around the eyes."

Bill and John exchanged startled glances.

"I met her, you see," the priest explained. He finally found the file he was looking for and started spreading the contents out on the desk. "When she was alive. It was just the once, of course, but she was not the sort of person you forget easily. There was something--I don't know how to explain it. It was also the incident that led to me being inducted into my, well, my special calling."

John knew all too well how that sort of thing worked. He wondered if the folders on Tauscher's desk were his version of Bobby's library or the leather journal John kept in his jacket.

"I was serving at the Carmelite Monastery up in Ladue. During the war, you know. We had people coming in and out at all hours, looking for a place to pray, maybe just looking for solace. Those were hard times, oh yes. So it wasn't all that strange for anyone to come in, but Mrs. Winchester stood out. She was wearing a bright red dress and no shoes. I remember that. The Carmelites are a discalced order, true, but barefoot and in a scandalous dress was hardly appropriate for someone coming in to hear Mass or go to confession."

"Um, discalced means 'shoeless,' and technically the Carmelite order of nuns--"

John silenced Bill with a look. He hadn't known what the word meant, but didn't appreciate that being assumed.

"How did she die?" John asked. "I heard something about a fire."

Father Tauscher nodded. "Yes, yes. Although, I didn't see the fire itself. Only its aftermath. And the bodies, of course."

"Bodies? Plural?" Bill asked. "Hold on--I thought only Mrs. Winchester was killed."

"Father Calkins," the old man said sadly. "A good man, truly good, but he had blood on his hands and all down the front of his cassock when he died. We knew at once it wasn't his blood. Three of the sisters also died. We... we found Sister Agnes and Sister Benedict back in the chancel."

He took off his glasses for a moment and polished them as he tried to collect himself. "Sister Therese was on the altar." He crossed himself in much the same way he had polished his glasses. It took a few seconds before he could put his glasses on and continue with his story. "We think Father Calkins... he must have slit their throats before he was killed. I suppose I would have died, too, if I had been in there that night."

"Well, it sounds like it's a good thing you weren't, I guess," Bill said before John could ask just what the hell the good father had been doing that he wasn't there. "I'm curious, but did you ever notice anything strange around the monastery before all that happened?"

"Excuse me, but this is my grandmother we're talking about," John said, fixing Bill with a glare. His dead grandmother, his hunt.

"Wow. Bobby told me you were a territorial bastard, but--er, sorry, Father. Anyhow, I'm just trying to help." Bill didn't sound at all put out, but he did sound way too amused.

"Fine." John turned back to Father Tauscher, who seemed more entertained than offended by John and Bill's by-play. "Like my _friend_ here said, did anything strange happen before my grandmother showed up?"

"Even if it was a few months before," Bill said, meeting John's snarl with a cheerful smile.

Father Tauscher shook his head. "I don't recall much of anything leading up that night. It was unusually cold for June, and there was a thunderstorm that came out of nowhere that afternoon. That's not something I particularly remember, myself. I only know because I looked up the weather reports, later, once I had learned more about such omens, but then..." He shook his head. "It's hard to say. I was just outside the chapel, and your grandmother came walking straight towards me. She seemed... intent. Yes, intent. Almost fearsome. She told me she was sorry, but something terrible was about to happen. It was hard not to believe her. I remember her reaching out towards my face."

Here, he chuckled, even though the story was hardly amusing. "I remember thinking something like 'how inappropriate!' at the time, but my world was so, so much smaller then. She touched my face, and it felt that only a second had passed and I was waking up under a tree halfway across the grounds from where I had been. It was growing light, and there was a lot of commotion over something in the chapel."

As well there should have been, from the way he told it. Cardinal Glennon himself--or Archbishop as he'd been then--had come out in the middle of the night to see what had happened, although he was horribly frail at the time. He even had a papal legate with him--a _legatus a latere_ , if you could believe it, one who spoke with the authority of the Holy Father himself.

"It was so strange, seeing His Eminence deferring to such a young man. When I arrived at the chapel, the legate's men had found six bodies, or so they thought. Father Calkins, the three sisters, your grandmother, and another young man. It was only five, though. The young man was alive, but barely." Father Tauscher paused for a moment, very much out of breath.

"Who was he?" John asked.

"Frederick Beaumont." He passed piece of paper over. It was a page that had been cut from a yearbook. John knew instantly which of the boys on the Country Day School tennis team was his grandmother's beloved little cousin. He looked eerily like an older, darker-haired version of Dean. "I see you recognize the name."

"Yes." John knew the name, but he had never actually seen a picture of the Cousin Freddy who was the only thing Mary Alice had missed from her old life. Even in the stiff school photo, John could see an echo of the I-dare-you smile that he knew from Mary Alice's photos. This was the first time that he'd realized it was also Dean's smile. "What happened to him?"

When John had gone digging into Mary Alice's past, Frederick Beaumont had simply faded from official view sometime in the late 1940s. There were mentions of a hospital, but that was it. No death certificate, nothing. His parents had died in a car accident in 1948, and after that there was nothing left of that branch of the Beaumont family.

"We don't know. He was as weak and uncoordinated as an infant, and his mind was ruined. Completely shattered. I don't know what happened to him afterwards other than that both the legate and His Eminence assured me he would be cared for and made as comfortable as possible for the rest of his days. I believed them. I still do."

Father Tauscher looked up at the pictures on the wall above his desk. Some were obviously of friends and relatives, but there were pictures of six different Popes and an old man who John guessed was Cardinal Glennon. "I never learned why, but the Beaumont family was... I don't want to say well-regarded, but the Archbishop and legate were insistent that the name be kept out of the papers and away from the eye of the law. It took a good deal of intercession--prayerful and political both--but the incident was kept reasonably quiet. We had to notify the families, of course. That was... difficult."

Bill whistled low. John continued to study the picture of a young man who looked too much like Dean for his comfort. He also began to wonder if it had been Mary Alice's aunt and uncle who had sent those priests out to talk to her and arranged for her son to be baptized, or if it was really the police who had called Uncle Jack to inform him of her death.

"Were they thinking demon possession?" Bill asked.

Father Tauscher hesitated slightly before saying 'yes.' "There was an exorcism rite although I was told it was clear the demon had already fled. The entire place had to be re-sanctified, but no demon possession I ever saw afterwards looked anything like that. The rites His Eminence said over Father Calkins and the sisters were the ones they would have used over someone who died while possessed by a demon. But your grandmother... The legate insisted they treat her as they would a holy martyr, and while the burns on Father Calkins were handled as one might a deadly poison, the legate collected some of the ash from around your grandmother's body into a linen handkerchief to take with him back to Rome. No one dared ask him why, not even His Eminence."

"Now that's what's funny, Father," Bill said. "The legate--there couldn't have been so many of them with that kind of power just kicking around. If he got there that night, he had to have already been in town, right? That's kind of fishy, if you ask me. Especially with a war on and all."

Father Tauscher just shook his head slowly. "It was _because_ there was a war on. There would have been one _legatus a latere_ in each archdiocese. Those were interesting times, in the 'may you live in interesting times' sense. The war was being fought in places far, far beyond Europe and the Pacific if you take my meaning."

Bill's eyes positively lit up. "Really? You know, I'd heard rumors that the Germans were digging into some pretty hairy spellcraft."

"Oh, yes. But it wasn't just the Germans, you see. The--"

John cut in before things could go too far down that particular rabbit hole. Some other time, he'd be glad to listen, but that would be some _other_ time. Right now, there was only one story he cared about.

"Look, that's all fascinating, but that's not why I'm here. I'm not interested in all that conspiracy crap unless it has something to do with what happened to my grandmother. You're saying that both she and Calkins were burned up?"

Just like Mary. His hands clenched. He was close, so close, but he didn't dare hope.

Father Tauscher looked at him wide-eyed and shook his head. "Oh, no. Not burned up. Not completely. I didn't get a good look at Father Calkins, but his burns were on his face. Up around the eyes, from what little I was allowed to see."

"So the fire didn't burst out from behind him?" John asked. He wasn't letting go of this, not yet. There had to be more, if he just asked the right questions. "What about my grandmother? The fire started behind her, right? From the ceiling, or maybe the walls?"

Bill watched the back and forth as if he was following a tennis match.

Tauscher's eyes went wide. "Ah! How did you know? Or was that simply a deduction?"

"It's how my wife was killed," John said, and for once, Bill didn't look as if this whole thing had been staged just for his benefit. The look he gave John reminded John very much of Deacon, and he decided then and there that maybe Bill really was okay after all.

Father Tauscher closed his eyes in what might have been grief, or possibly guilt. "In my position, it would be horribly inappropriate for me to offer sympathy. But yes, that is how your grandmother died. Here. The picture is more than a little disturbing, but perhaps it will be of some help to you."

John tried not to seem too eager as he took the photo. Bill craned his head to see, and let out a loud 'huh!'

John nearly crumpled the photo in his hand. The woman in the photo was clearly his grandmother, but she had not died the same way Mary had. She had been stabbed in the neck, not slashed across her belly. There was a look of angry surprise on her face.

(And he could picture it so clearly, the way her look of pride and relief had turned to hurt and fury just before the knife went in.)

Fire had burst out behind her, yes, but not in the way he had assumed or in any way he had ever seen before.

(But he _had_ seen this before. Where had he seen this before?)

Mary Alice herself was untouched by the fire, save for a few faint singe marks around her eyes and mouth. But the wall behind her, where she had slumped when stabbed in the throat, was covered in char.

The burn pattern looked like a pair of giant wings.


	6. Part Six

**Now**

From time to time, John thinks he hears bits and pieces about matters elsewhere in Hell. There are snippets of worry and of corresponding bravado. John thinks of dark wings on rock and altar, and he wonders about the demon who possessed Michelle Dinh and opposed Azazel at Devil's Gate. He thinks about the red-haired demon who had wanted to kill Mary before Sam could be born, and he wonders about the one who killed his grandmother.

The enemy of his enemy may not be his friend, but his breaks in Limbo leave plenty room for curiosity to take root.

Whoever they are, he's pretty sure they're no better than Azazel. Azazel might have plans for Sam, but these things have _worse_ than plans.

It's something John thinks about a lot when he's between sessions--how he's been nothing but a pawn in all of this, and now he's been knocked off the board completely.

In Limbo, there is plenty of time to think.

 _Sitting here in limbo, got some time to search my soul_

John has to admit, it's a catchy tune. He's worried he'll start singing it when Alastair has him under the knife.

What chance did he ever really have? What chance do his boys have now? They're just pieces in a game played by beings who don't give a damn if his boys are broken to bits in the process.

Another being appears in the void surrounding them. A new one. This happens. New tenants wink into like fireflies from time to time. Some are confused. Many are angry. This one, however spots him at once. It comes straight at him, mindless of Rags, snarling hatred and contempt.

 _Miserable mudmonkey! Why were you ever created? Why? You ruined everything, you miserable filth, you--_

Rags surges up from the deep and flicks the being away. It had better not come back, John thinks he hears. He gets the impression of a smile that seems oddly familiar, and then Rags retreats into its incessant prowl.

 _I don't think he will, Rags,_ Virgil says as he arrives. It's amazing how an incorporeal, generally invisible being can still manage to _saunter_.

John asks if he's sure of that.

 _The longer me and my kind stay here, the more we decay, and getting bitch-slapped halfway across creation by Rags probably didn't help him any. Eh, he was a douchebag, anyway._

There's something in the way Virgil says it that makes John wonder if Virgil knows this guy.

 _Not well. But he was a suckup to my asshole brother. That other one who gave you trouble earlier? A suckup to my other asshole brother_. He sighs. _Family. What are you gonna do?_

John hears a lot in that phrase. Love, disappointment, anger, grief, disgust.

It feels strange to feel sorry for Virgil.

 _What was it you said to Dean at the end? That he had to save Sam or kill him?_

John goes numb with grief.

 _That's how it was with my brother_ , Virgil says sadly. _I couldn't save him, couldn't talk him down off that ledge, so I had to kill him._

Did it work?

The sorrow is replaced by a smirk. _Perfectly_.

So you killed you brother?

John isn't sure what to think. He had gambled everything on Dean being able to find a way to avoid the one thing John knew he could never, ever bring himself to do.

 _Oh, no. He killed_ me. _Just as I planned_.

This makes absolutely no sense.

 _Okay_. Fine. _It was a contingency plan, all right? Happy now? I knew I would end up here if he got me before I could get him. Of course, he'd have ended up here if I killed him, and then he'd have busted out eventually._

There is a grin that bends the entire void.

 _Just like I plan to do. Because I, my friend, am the man with the plan!_

The phrase rattles a memory loose. Not one of the memories that was left behind by the demon who used him as a meatsuit, but one of his own.

 _Well, I need to figure out what that plan is, first._

Just a damn minute...

Virgil's air of innocence isn't all that convincing. Even Rags gives the impression of looking at him sidelong as if to ask what he's done _this_ time.

I know you from the movie! John yells. He knows now what Virgil is, and anger keeps the sense of betrayal at bay--for now.

You're the demon from the goddamn movie!

 

 **2006**

The news from Ellen left him rattled, to say the least. It also made him a lot less curious about Indiana even though that clock was ticking fast. There was another clock he was much more worried about, and he didn't know when its countdown would end, only that it would be soon.

He was already on I-80 on his way to Indiana, so when he left the motel early the next morning he simply headed west instead of east. Indiana could wait a few more days if it had to, but not any longer than that, thanks to Tulsa. He drove as long as he could, long past the time he should have started looking for a place to stop the night.

He wound up in the Cadillac Inn in Lovelock, Nevada without much memory of just how he got there, or what price he'd agreed to pay for the room.

The place was neither as seedy or as kitschy as he would have expected given the name. It was clean, it was comfortable, and the mattress didn't feel like it had been through the wars.

Even though he was exhausted and the bed was comfortable, he was too wound up to fall asleep. He turned on the ancient TV set and searched for a station that had something other than snow or infomercials.

The TV only did so much to help drown out his thoughts. The demon knew where Sam was. John had been stupid not to think this was the case. He could only hope that his rattling the cages and making a lot of noise around places like Ilchester and Stull would keep enough attention on him to keep his boys in the clear until this was over.

At the same time, he actually had to _stop_ the demon, too. There was a way to do that, and somehow, he would find it.

John didn't know exactly what the demon had planned for Sam, but the fire in Palo Alto had changed things for Sam in a way that could never, ever be fixed.

John knew that all too well. He also knew that whatever he did for Sam, in some ways it would be too little, too late.

He flopped back on the bed.

Always too little, always too late--it was the story of his life.

He needed to stop thinking about things he couldn't change, so he tried to lose himself in the late movie. It was an old favorite, with a good, satisfying ending if not a happy one. Plus, there was no way you could go wrong with Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and James Garner.

The familiarity of the dialogue and the score did what he hoped and lulled him to sleep.

He woke up what felt like just a few minutes later. _The Great Escape_ was still on, and the Cooler King had gotten himself locked up again. Steve McQueen threw the baseball against the wall over and over again as he plotted his next escape. _Ka-thump, ka-thump._

Funny, but John didn't remember this exact scene, even though he had seen the movie a dozen times.

 _Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump._

This went on for far longer than he remembered in the movie. No, wait... this particular scene wasn't _in_ the movie.

"The hell?" He sat up straight and squinted at the TV. It was an old box set, the kind with fake wood sides and rabbit ears perched on top. Earlier, the picture had been grainy and shaded too much towards red. Now, though, the metal walls of the Cooler looked very crisp and very real.

Steve McQueen caught the ball one last time. Then he turned to John and winked. His features shifted slightly, making him look more like Bill Harvelle.

Okay. This was a dream. He had talked to Ellen about Bill, and he had fallen asleep watching a Steve McQueen movie. This should not be surprising.

It _was_ surprising when the Cooler King started talking to John.

"Heya, John. Long time no see." He chuckled. "Well, long time for me. First time for you. Anyways, sorry I can't step in long, but I'm kinda crossing the streams here, time-wise."

"Who are you?" John reminded himself this was a dream.

Bill McQueen or whoever he was grinned in a way that made him look like a third person altogether. "Me? Just an old friend you haven't met yet. More importantly, I'm the man with the plan, John."

"What plan?" Terror and anger pushed him to his feet. He knew who this had to be, and he was no longer so sure this was a dream. "What are you trying to do to Sam?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, _mi amigo_." The demon held up his hands. Then he looked down at himself, and blinked a few times in consternation. "Okay. So it's a tasteless choice of outfit, but this was the only time and way I could find to slip into your subconsious. Why don't I change into something more comfortable?" he said lasciviously.

The chin and nose sharpened, the hair and eyes darkened, and the handsome features shifted into something a bit more puckish. It fit the demon's grin to a T. The eyes did not, however, turn black or yellow. Instead, they were a perfectly ordinary hazel.

" _Much_ better. Now first of all, I don't have long, because I'll attract my own attention, and that won't end well, because it never happened. Although... maybe this little indiscretion is what drew my attention to you Winchester chumps in the first place." He shrugged. "Paradox, gotta love it. Any-hoo, before this conversation turns into a whole string of wacky misunderstandings, let's get one thing straight: I'm not Azazel."

"Who?" The name was familiar, but John didn't know why.

The demon put a finger to his mouth and simpered. "Oopsie! Did _I_ say that? My bad! I'm not supposed to give you any clues about that yellow-eyed bastard, wink-wink, nudge-nudge. What I'm here for is to give you the kind of vague and cryptic warning that you get from mysterious people who show up in dreams looking like old friends and wearing Freudian slips. Oh, and a here's a non-cryptic freebie for you, since we're friends--simply demanding the bad guys tell you what their plans are _never_ works. You just end up looking like a moron."

There weren't any weapons to hand that could do any good. Whatever this was got in despite the salt lines and other protections he'd put down.

"And I'm just supposed to trust you, 'friend'? Believe that you're on my side?"

"Pfft... The only person's side I'm on is my own. And after what I've done, you'd be stupid to trust me, believe me. Or not. I'm just doing this because you told..." He wrinked his brow and gazed up into the corner. "Will tell? Will have told? Sorry, babbling! Time loops'll do that to ya. Even though things have already happened from my perpsective, destiny and fate are still trying to reassert themselves. Things can still go very, very wrong. Or very _right_ , depending on your point of view."

By this point, John had moved from suspicion to simple confusion. He even started wondering if he'd been right the first time, and this _was_ a dream. Meanwhile, one of the foreign memories locked in the back of his mind kept trying to assign a name to the intruder.

"Anyway, you'll forget most of this when we're done talking. That said, there is one simple fact you need to remember."

"Which is?"

The man came right up to the screen and crossed his arms on the edge of the television set as he leaned out into the room.

"This is _not_ about you, my pathologically self-centered friend. It's about _everything_. If your boys lose this fight, everything goes to hell. And I mean that literally. The hell part _and_ the everything part. Anyhow, hasta la bye-bye, John."

The man ducked back into the TV, changing back to the Cooler King he knew from the movies even as the dream changed over to John crawling out of a POW camp with his grandmother and Steve McQueen. The tunnels were the ones from the movie, but they were moving fast, too fast, and John had no idea where they would be coming out. Then without warning, they were at the end. The Cooler King wriggled out, then extended a hand from the darkness above into the darkness below. John took his hand, felt the pull, and then...

...his eyes opened. Fragments of dream flew off in all directions no matter how hard he tried to cling to them. He couldn't remember any details, but he did remember a sense of urgency. He also felt strangely small and helpless.

He thought about that for a moment, then rejected the idea. He had to save his family. That was the only thing that mattered, he told himself. The only thing.

He almost called the boys then and there, just to hear their voices, but he had work to do first.

 

 **Now**

 _I most certainly did not hijack a Steve McQueen movie in the middle of the night to talk to you through your own neuroses!_

Virgil sounds genuinely put out, probably because he hadn't thought of the idea.

 _I am also_ not _a demon!_

Bullshit.

 _None of us in here are_ , Virgil lies. _What do I have to do to get you to stop obsessing about them?_

What's your real name? And if you're not a demon, then what are you?

 _Pfft. Certainly not Virgil. I have a little brother by that name._

John wonders if there's a sort of affection there, but he also thinks he remembers someone who is fiercely duty-bound in a way that would have scared John even when he was at his worst.

A real tight-ass, obsessed with weapons?

There's the impression of a raised eyebrow.

 _Innnnnteresting. How do you know that? Perfect description, although you left out 'humorless douchebag.'_

John doesn't know. It's the same reason he thinks he knows Virgil and not just from the movie. The memory comes from the same place as the memories of the burned-up red haired woman.

There's a double-take from Virgil that's the size of a continent-rending earthquake.

 _Just a sec. I'll be right back_ , Virgil says. He suddenly sounds as leery of John as John does of him. _There's something I need to check on_.

He disappears into the red void even as John calls out that he still hasn't answered the other part of his question.

 

 **2006**

 _Azazel._

It was only a name, but at least it was something. Finding out more about who--and _what_ \--it referred to had just climped to the top of his priority list.

The name had stuck hard in his mind after what he knew had been a strange and vivid dream. It sounded familiar, but John wasn't sure if it was from something he had read, or from those strange memories that had been left behind by the demon that had possessed him.

It was tempting to put the name to that yellow-eyed bastard, but he knew better than to trust dreams.

When he got to Palo Alto, John made a show of standing around in front of Sam's old apartment and checking out foundations and other spots where someone might hide a sigil. When he was certain he wasn't being watched, he even committed a little petty vandalism.

All in all, the place showed little external sign of damage, but he saw a dumpster out back filled with charred and water-warped drywall. The apartment's brand-new windows still had the manufacturer stickers on them.

Still, John looked around the whole building, even using fake credentials to get inside for a 'spot inspection.' He had hoped to see some sign of Sam's old life here, but when he went in, all he was half-completed repairs. There was no furniture, no pictures, no books, nothing. He couldn't even imagine what the place had been like with Sam living here. In a way, it felt like whatever soul the building had, had been ripped right out.

He continued his explorations. His EMF reader went off loudly in more than one place, even though the apartment smelled more like paint than smoke and sulfur. He made no attempt to silence the meter's squawk. In fact, he turned the volume up.

When he heard sibilant cursing from outside, John smiled. He made his way outside and to the back of the building where he had parked the truck. A demon had gotten itself caught in one of the devil's traps he had drawn while otherwise making a show of checking out the rehab work.

"Hoping to ambush me, were you?"

The demon wore the contruction foreman who had inspected John's credentials earlier. John wondered if he had been possessed at the time, but he supposed it didn't matter.

"I suppose you think you're being clever, Winchester," it snarled. Unsurprisingly, its eyes were beetle-black.

"Actually, I do," John said pleasantly. He had a wide-mouthed bottle of holy water in one hand and a Sharpie in the other. Everything else he needed was hanging from his pockets. "So... Does the name Azazel mean anything to you? And I'm guessing from the look on your face that it does. Well, how about that?"

The demon had quickly schooled its expression from terrified shock to the usual sort of arrogance John had come to expect. Still, it had let enough slip for John to know he might have just hit pay dirt.

"You should ask what that name means to you." The demon sneered at him, and John knew what would happen next--a round of egging him on to try to get him to do something stupid and break the Devil's Trap. "Lord Azaz--"

"Just shut the fuck up, would you?" John said as he flung a liter of holy water in the demon's face. The water caught the demon mid-rant and some of it went down the thing's throat. When it doubled over and started clawing at its mouth and eyes, John got it in a headlock. The demon cursed at him and tried to buck him free, which was precisely the wrong move John was counting on. It gave him just the angle he needed.

The simple, but very, very effective sigil John scrawled on its neck with the Sharpie would lock the demon front and center. There would be no retreating into the depths of some poor soul's mind.

The demon got in a good punch, but John was ready. He grabbed the man's wrist, and spun him around so he could grab the other hand and get them bound together in a set of zip-tie cuffs. From the look of things, the man had a dislocated shoulder, but that was something John could worry about later.

Last of all, John got the cloth sack he'd tucked into his back pocket. This went over the demon's head.

Between the sigil on its neck and the Devil's Trap covering its face, the demon wasn't going anywhere for a while.

"We're gonna take this elsewhere. This is going to be noisy, and I don't want any interruptions." John scuffed a break in the original trap, and hauled the demon back to the truck.

The next hour turned out to be a very profitable one.

Overall, John managed to let slip less than he learned, so he counted it a net win. The construction foreman survived the experience, and John drove him to the emergency room after the demon had been sent back to hell. He did his best to explain everything the man had seen and heard while possessed, even though anything he could possibly say was both too much and not enough.

John watched him as he walked up to the sliding doors, clutching his dislocated shoulder. He looked back at the truck and met John's eyes. The salt and holy water had left what looked like a nasty sunburn, but that was nothing compared to the stricken look in his eyes.

 _Thank you_ , he mouthed.

It was no longer the demon--it was Valerio Lopes, a man with a wife he adored and a baby boy who was the absolute light of his life. He nodded a solemn farewell to John, then continued on his way.

Instead of driving off right away, John waited and watched until Valerio was safely inside the ER.

In another life, he could imagine grabbing a beer with Valerio after they'd each put in a hard day's work. John, who had gone from begging for a job to owning his own garage. Valerio, who had started as a ditch digger, and worked his way up to foreman.

Now, though, John was what he was. As for Valerio, John imagined he would be standing vigil outside his son's nursery on his six-month birthday.

John shook his head and drove off, getting as far away from Palo Alto as he could as fast as he could. He didn't stop until he reached Sacramento. He pulled into a strip mall parking lot, even though he was in no need of a dry cleaner, manicurist, or chiropractor.

He just needed a place to think for a few minutes.

Funny, but once upon a time, he would have been happier to have this much information about the demon he had been. He should have been happy about it now.

How could he be? John might have been closing in on the demon, but he didn't know how close the demon had been to Sam. Or for how long. And it wasn't just Sam.

 _This is not about you_.

Words he didn't remember hearing echoed in his mind. Normally, he would have dismissed the thought, but after what he had just learned, the words were hard to ignore.

He had known that other families were being broken the way his had, but he had not realized it was so many. Also, the idea hit home a lot harder than it used to after what had happened to Sam. Something that had just been an abstract notion had become painfully real.

He pictured Valerio, standing by his son's crib one night three months from now to protect the baby from something he had no hope of stopping. Or maybe Valerio would have to watch as his Wendy was burned to death.

John pressed his fingers to his eyes. Nearly twenty children, now. Twenty families.

 _This is not about you_.

That didn't mean he wouldn't be the one to stop it. If anything, he had even more reason, now.

Then there was the list of names Harry had given him. Another couple would disappear in the next few days if he didn't do something, but so could this lead.

He was running out of time. So were two innocent people driving through the Midwest. And, if the demon he had interrogated could be believed, so were three more young families.

John leaned back with a sharp sigh, knocking his head against the headrest. He stared out the truck windshield at nothing.

What the hell was he supposed to do? He couldn't pass the Indiana job off to another hunter without fielding any number of questions he wasn't ready or willing to answer. Then there were his boys. John told himself that at least they knew how to look after themselves. They were seasoned hunters, and Sam was back in the game...

There was his answer. It wasn't the best one, but it was the only one he could think of.

Truth be told, ever since he woke up that morning with the scraps of that strange dream flitting through his mind, John had been looking for an excuse to talk his boys.

For safety's sake, he called from a payphone, but not before pouring salt around the booth and using his key to scratch a couple of signs onto the handset. He dialed Dean's number, but it wasn't Dean who answered. The sleepy 'hello' was painfully familiar, even though he hadn't heard that voice in years.

"Sam, is that you?"

"Dad?" To say he sounded shocked was an understatement. Sam fumbled around for something to say, settling on: "Are you hurt?"

John sighed and thought for a moment. He wasn't sure how to answer that. "I'm fine," he lied.

"We've been looking for you everywhere." Sam sounded about eight again, scared and petulant. "We didn't know where you were, or if you were okay."

"Sammy, I'm all right." He was pretty sure he didn't sound all right. He had a reason behind this call, but right now the only thing that mattered was hearing Sam's voice. "What about you and Dean?"

"Uh, we're fine." John heard rustling in the background. "Dad, where are you?"

"Sorry, kiddo. I can't tell you that." There was intent behind Sam's question, and if John gave him even a scrap of a clue, Sam would come haring after him. As badly as he wanted to see his boys, right now was the worst possible time for them to be anywhere near him. Besides, he had a job for them.

"What? Why not?" That was the Sam he remembered all too well, and some other time, he would have given Sam an order to shut up and listen.

" _Is that Dad?_ " he heard Dean ask in the background.

Dean was also there, of course. Good, good. If Sam was going through anything like what he had gone through with Mary...

"Look, I know this is hard for you to understand. You're just... You're gonna have to trust me on this." If they asked him where he got the list of names, he had no idea how he would answer.

He could almost hear Sam thinking.

"You're after it, aren't you? The thing that killed Mom."

"Yeah." He debated for a moment. After what had happened in Palo Alto, Sam deserved to know. Part of him said that no, that would be a stupid idea...

 _This is not about you._

"It's a demon, Sam."

"A demon? You know for sure?"

" _A demon? What's he sayin'?_ " Dean said. John wouldn't have been a bit surprised if Dean grabbed the phone away from his brother.

"I do." He had no idea what to say next. He tried to think of all the things he would have wanted to hear, but nothing came to mind. "Listen, Sammy, I, uh... I also know what happened to your girlfriend."

 _One of your 'friends' was Azazel's lieutenant_ , he didn't say. _Someone you trusted like you trust family got in close and tore your life to bits while you weren't there to do anything to stop it._

Sam would never know about that if he could help it.

He waited, but Sam said nothing. He heard Dean doing something in the background, and he heard a hitch in Sam's breath that broke his heart.

"I'm so sorry," he said when Sam didn't fill the silence. "I would've done anything to protect you from that."

The quiet on the other end of the line took on a different fell.

"You know where it is." There was a hardness in Sam's voice that made John deeply uneasy. He knew where it came from. He would have to play this very carefully.

John nodded. "Yeah. I think I'm finally closing in on it." He had the names of a few towns, and there while there was no way to tell if he would be too late or not, it was still something and it was more than he had had in years. It also gave him some other ideas for how he could get ahead of the demon.

"Let us help," Sam pleaded.

John was expecting that, and he was prepared for it.

"You can't. You can't be any part of it." He had drawn attention to himself, deliberately. He had tortured and interrogated a demon and then he had sent it back to Hell.

He almost believed himself when he told himself it was a calculated risk.

"Why not?" The first traces of temper were there, subtle, familiar, and not at all unexpected.

" _Gimme the phone,_ " Dean demanded.

"Listen, Sammy. That's why I'm calling. You and your brother, you got to stop looking for me. A'right, now I need you to write down these names."

"Names? What names? Dad, wh..." Sam floundered with all the questions he no doubt wanted to ask. "Talk to me! Tell me... what's going on?"

"Look! We don't have time for this. This is bigger than you think." It was bigger than Sam could possibly imagine. John couldn't even get his head around it. "They're everywhere. Even us talking right now, it's not... it's not safe."

Someone had seen into his motel room back in Jericho. Someone had known he would be at Missouri's. Someone knew what had happened in 1983.

"No! All right?" Sam was close to tears, he was so angry. "No way."

" _Give me the phone!_ "

"I've given you an order," John said, but he couldn't put any weight behind the words. "Now you stop following me and you do your job. You understand me? Now take down these names."

There was a scuffle, and then Dean was on the phone. John was surprised it had taken him this long.

"Dad! It's me! Where are you?"

"Somewhere you need to keep your brother the hell away from right now. I have a job for you two. You are not to try to find me. Not now, not anymore. Understand? "

Dean swallowed hard. "Yessir."

"Do you have a pen? I need to you to take down some names."

"Uh, yeah, I got a pen." He sounded more than a little shaken. "What are the names?"

John listed the names, and told Dean about the disappearances and where they had likely taken place. "This is important, son. You don't have much more time before another couple goes missing."

He had no idea what he was sending them into, but it had to be better than facing down a demon. John finally had a name, and based on the interrogation, he knew it had to be a major player and very likely the one he had been hunting all these years.

After he checked out the three towns the demon had told him about, his next step would be to learn all he could about this 'Azazel.'

 

 **1995**

"I don't get it. Used to be, we'd hear of maybe one demon possession every couple of years." Ellen finished pouring out a round of iced tea for everyone. A second after she poured, the glasses were sheeting with condensation.

"Nineteen seventy-three," John countered. The heat was making it harder than usual to keep his temper. The Roadhouse ceiling fans were going full speed, but they just moved the air around without cooling it. "And what about nineteen _eighty_ -three?"

Ellen waved his protests aside. "What I'm trying to say is that even counting what happened then, five possessions in one month is ridiculous."

"Which is what I've been telling you all for the past year." It took effort not to shout. "It's been creeping up slowly, but you can't just say it's just a freak spike in activity any more."

"I don't recall saying it was." Ellen fixed him with a cool look that all but dared him to contradict her. "And I'm not saying that it's not connected to what happened to your wife, but you can't jump straight into this assuming that it is."

There were times when John wondered if Mary would have adored Ellen or hated her.

"What scares me more than the thought of taking either one of your sides is that all this seems too, I dunno, _organized_." Bill hadn't said much until then, which was unusual for him. He was too preoccupied with a number of maps, making X's in different colors here and there and going on to connect them with lines. It looked like most of the black X's clustered around known hell gates, but there were a number of outliers that Bill was trying to force into some sort of pattern. To John, the resulting shape that covered New England and most of the Maritimes looked more like a pterodactyl than any sigil he knew.

"What do you know about organized?" Ellen retorted. "I've _seen_ your sock drawer."

John laughed, even though humor brought with it a spasm of pain. He remembered that kind of teasing. More than that, he remembered the easy companionship that made jokes and banter possible. He missed it. It was good to enjoy it again, even vicariously, but a small dose was all he could handle. About five years back, he'd had a small taste of it again with Kate Milligan, but in the end it was less a comfort and more a reminder of a normal he could never truly have again. He briefly wonderered how she was doing before clenching his jaw and pushing the thought aside.

"Organized and gaining strength, just like Daniel said." Right now, he had to focus on the job at hand. After this was done, he could revisit the idea of bringing Dean and Sam out to the Roadhouse. Maybe there wouldn't be any more need to run when this was over and the three of them could simply not go _anywhere_ for a while. "Yes, the plan Caleb and Jim and I drew up is risky--"

"Way more than risky, especially 'cause part of me thinks you're chasing shadows," Ellen said. She held up a hand before John could retort. "But if you're right about them gaining strength, and more of me thinks you're right than thinks you're wrong, it's way the hell riskier to wait. If we're going to have any chance of putting a halt to this, we need to find out what these things are up to. You said Elkins is already on the move?"

"That's what he told me when he called," Bill said. He held down the maps to keep the fans from blowing them away as he studied a configuration of X's in Pennsylvania. "He and Gordon are checking some middle-of-nowhere place in Wyoming. Can't recall where, exactly."

Ellen's mouth puckered with confusion. "Wyoming? What the hell's in _Wyoming?_ "

"Right now, Daniel Elkins and Gordon Walker. Beyond that, beats me. Daniel said there was something in one of his ancestors' journals that pointed to a hellgate being there, but that's the first I've ever heard of it," Bill said.

"God save me from people who brag about how many generations of hunters they've got in the family," Ellen muttered, and John felt a rush of defensiveness on Mary's behalf. "That's like bragging about... I don't know, how much cancer runs in the family. Anyhow, what do you want to bet it's not a hellgate but a vampire nest they're after?"

"Sucker's bet," both John and Bill said at the same time, and they exchanged wry grins.

John had yet to encounter Gordon Walker, but he had heard more than a few stories, most of which compared him unfavorably to Matt McCrory. He had also started hearing a few stories about Daniel, and the thought got him to wondering again if maybe he should just swallow his pride and call his old mentor. Then again, maybe he shouldn't.

That last conversation... to say it hadn't gone well would be an understatement. Daniel had been pissed that John had been pissed about the stunt with Jim Murphy, and when John had started pressing him about some of the things he'd heard about from Bobby, Daniel had blown up at him and John had blown up right back.

"Caleb and Marisol are covering Stull, and Jefferson and Rufus are on their way to Pennsylvania," John said before his thoughts could pull him back into old grudges and away from the more important matter at hand.

Ellen raised an eyebrow. "Rufus and Jefferson? Now there's a road trip from Hell. What about you, John? There's no way you're sidelining yourself for this, am I right?"

Again, John and Bill exchanged glances, but there was no grinning this time.

"We're checking out Devil's Gate in California," Bill said as if announcing he was going out to the kitchen to get another cup of coffee.

For the next few seconds, the room went silent except for the thrum of the fans and the buzz of a fly battering itself against the screen door.

"'We,'" Ellen said flatly. "And when were 'we' planning on telling me about this, exactly?"

"El, Bobby's got a busted leg, or he'd have gone. You know that. You really want John to go in there alone?"

Ellen said nothing, but John recognized the look she gave her husband. There was a whole conversation going on there he wasn't privy to, but knew all too well the way worry came out as anger.

"You know me--I'd rather go alone, but for something this big, I'm going to need someone I can trust to watch my back," John said.

"Jim Murphy." It came out lightning fast.

"I've handled worse, El." Bill didn't raise his voice, but there was a sharpness to it.

"And I know how you get when you get restless. You get stupid, Bill. _This_ is stupid."

"John, I think my wife just called me stupid." Bill was probably just trying to be break the tension, but Ellen went pale with rage.

John stood up and said he'd thought he'd step outside for a bit. It wasn't to give them space. He just didn't want to be around them just then. Not when he was hearing echoes of that last summer with Mary. They had patched things up by autumn, but then...

So much wasted time. So much that never had a chance to happen.

He leaned against the side of the Impala and waited in the heat and the dust. If he had to go to Devil's Gate alone, he'd go alone, just as he'd planned before Bobby told him not to be a goddamn stubborn idjit. No, it wouldn't be smart, but it also felt right, that in the end he would face this thing all by himself.

It had to end that way. It felt right, deeply right, the way falling in love with Mary had felt right. If he had to, he'd capture that black-eyed bastard in a Devil's Trap the size of Pasadena, and keep him there for years or even decades until he could find a way to kill it for good.

But what if the thing was lurking in Stull? Or Chester? Or even out in Wyoming? Or what if this had nothing to do with his search? What then?

The answer to that question was that he'd just keep on going until he _did_ find the thing. He squinted up at the haze-bright sky and waited for the muffled sound of quarrelling to stop.

In a way, he couldn't fault Daniel for going after a vampire nest if he got word of one, no matter what else was going on. He may have fallen out with Daniel a decade ago, but he knew what losing Matt like that would have done to the man.

The screen door smacked shut, ricocheting in its frame. Both Ellen and Bill walked out onto the front porch. Bill had a duffel slung over his shoulder and a long cardboard tube in one hand. Ellen was carrying a shotgun case. She didn't look happy, but she didn't look resigned, either.

She passed the shotgun case over to John. "I'm trusting you to look after him," she said quietly.

"I will," he promised.

Then she pulled Bill close for a quick hug and kiss.

"Be careful, doofus," she said roughly. "Call when you can."

"See you in a few days, El." He looked back at the Roadhouse. "Bye Jo! Be good for you mom, okay?"

John had only seen Jo a few times--as much as possible, her mother tried to keep her out of the way of the hunters who frequented the Roadhouse. Still, the way the figure behind the screen door waved a reluctant goodbye was all too familiar. More and more, Sam looked at him like that rather than saying goodbye, as if silence and longing could keep him in one place.

Once the gun and duffel were stashed in the trunk, Bill folded himself into the passenger seat of the Impala. He tossed the cardboard tube into the back seat. "The maps," he explained. "I've got a few ideas kicking around that I'll want to work on when we stop for the night."

The cheerful look he had kept up for Ellen and Jo faded to something more pensive. Bill looked ten years older all of a sudden.

"I can run this alone if you've got second thoughts, Bill. This isn't your fight."

For a moment, John thought Bill might actually get right back out of the car.

"No, it's not," he said after a while. "But I've got Jo, and Ellen, and no, this isn't some caveman 'protect the wimmin' thing--you have no idea how close you came to having El riding shotgun on this trip instead of me--but just the thought of these things being in the same world as they are..."

There was a long silence.

"It's not right. It's not right the way seeing a kid blown to bits by a mortar shell or set on fire's not right." Bill was quite a storyteller, and there was a long story right there in the tightness of his voice and all the words he was not saying. "Once you see something like that, you can't ever unsee it. You know what I mean?"

"I do." Almost every night for the past twelve years, Mary burned on that ceiling. The other woman burned, too, but John had no more idea who she was than he did twelve years ago.

Twelve years. It seemed like a lifetime.

"I mean, there's times I think 'why bother?' The story's too damn big, and I'm nothing but a puppet or a pawn or maybe not even that much. There's all this crap going on, and I'm only seeing a small part of it, and even that small part's too damn big."

"Now that's depressing."

"Yup. Sure is," Bill said blissfully. "But if that's the case, then fighting back in the face of it all is one nice big 'fuck you' to the universe, now isn't it?"

"I'm not interested in saying 'fuck you' to the universe, Bill. And I know exactly what my part in this story is. It's simple. My part is that I'm going to kill the thing that killed my wife, and keep it from going after my sons."

He turned the ignition and the engine woke with a low, hungry growl.

"End of story."

 

 **2006**

John stood in his motel room, glaring at the maps on the wall as if he could intimidate them into coughing up an answer.

The maps were the successors to the ones Bill Harvelle had marked up all those years ago. The sprawling and almost whimsical patterns Bill had sketched out across the country had been refined and sharpened to a series of precisely placed X's and a few emphatic lines.

John stared at the patterns and wondered how the fuck he was supposed to kill a Prince of Hell. Maybe that legendary Colt would appear out of nowhere.

Maybe pigs would fly.

 _Azazel_. He had found the name quickly enough, and was less than amused to see it referenced in several of the texts on demonology he had consulted over the years.

He supposed it was nice of his subconscious to drag a name out of all that research he'd done in the past, and it was even better to get confirmation that his subconscious was right, but what was he supposed to _do_ about it? He had found the ritual for summoning the thing, but unless he had some serious firepower on his side, it was clear that the ritual would be little more than an elaborate form of suicide.

He stood up another nursery fire on the map. Then he added two more X's. After a moment's thought, he circled them to distinguish them from the other X he had drawn.

At first, he thought that only one of the leads he'd gotten from the demon in Palo Alto was valid. The other two had turned up six-month-old babies but no fires. Of course, he had checked those two leads first, and ended up showing up to the third a day too late to do anything except sift through the ashes and then go back to his motel and drink himself into a stupor.

Once he was done feeling sorry for himself, John checked the two false leads as carefully as he could, looking into the parents' background and even digging into adoption records.

In both cases, at least one parent had been in an area associated with a spike in demon activity back in 1995. What John couldn't figure out was why there hadn't been a fire on their children's six-month birthdays.

Green X's marked the last known locations of children who had lost parents in 1983, while blue X's marked their parents' locations in 1973. There was no clear pattern to be seen, and so far Ellen hadn't called to report anything unusual cropping up in the kids' environs.

That could have meant that nothing was happening, or whatever was happening was still too subtle to detect. People could live in a haunted house for decades before something happened to turn a ghost lethal. Who was to say something like that wasn't happening here?

John tossed the pen down on the floor in disgust. It felt like every time he learned something, he learned there how much more he didn't know. If this kept up, he'd start to feel like a bit character, and that was not acceptable.

He was _not_ going to lose to this thing. He would make it pay. He would get its hooks out of Sam.

Somehow.

Over the past two years he had stepped up the hunt, cross-referencing people who'd been caught up in any known demon activity in 1995 to births in the past year. He made lists, and he made marks on his maps.

Freakish electrical storms. Livestock and pets dying suddenly or being found mutilated. Sudden drops in temperature.

Each one got a mark, even as the specifics of his research went into the ever-growing folder he had put together over the past year. He knew all the signs, but every time he thought he had identified a solid pattern, something happened to change it refused to emerge. Obviously, some children were targets, while others were not. No doubt, there were also children he had missed in his research.

He was looking up weather patterns in New Haven when his cell phone rang. As usual, he gave the caller ID a quick check before letting it go to voice mail.

"I'll be god-damned," he whispered.

> 508-555-8972  
> HARRY WAGNER

All the searching he'd done, and his mystery caller was finally calling him directly. He was so stunned he nearly lost the call to voice mail.

"Hello?"

"Aha! Hello! I can't believe I was able to get through to you off the page."

"What? What the hell does that mean?"

As he'd come to expect after only two calls, there was a clink of ice on the other end of the line. "It's funny, but Ellen managed to track me down just as I found your number all on my own. I hadn't wanted to involve her in this, you see. I suppose I eventually would have caved and called her, but then I remembered that Jerry Panowski had your number. It took me far too long to figure that out." He sighed. "Well, they did say I would start having memory problems."

"What?" Knowing that his caller was an old friend of the Harvelles didn't make him any less unsettling. "Who--"

"Don't you remember? Good old Jerry? You and Dean worked a case with him a few years back."

"That's not what I meant. And how did you--"

"We need to meet, Mr. Aframian-Winchester," Harry said, and he sounded quite sober. "I have a story to tell you, and you have a story you need to tell me."

 

 **Now**

The way time loops in Limbo, it's 'just a sec' and it's also a long week of waiting.

The only constant is Rags, who has appointed itself as his guardian. There are flickers of hostility towards him out in the void, but after the examples made of the two demons who attacked him, John is left alone.

Another being moves towards him, but there's only curiosity. Still Rags surges up to meet the intruder.

 _It's okay, Raguel,_ it says in a voice that sounds like wooden bells. _I just want to talk to him. I'm not like the others._

There's a hidden meaning there. John asks what it is.

 _We were family. I thought that meant something, but it didn't, and now I'm here. There's so much less of me now_ , the new voice says, and there's a sadness that rolls over him like a hurricane wind. _I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry. I failed. And now you are here, too_.

What _are_ you? John asks. He's no longer so sure this is a demon.

Before the stranger can answer, they feel the pressure from Virgil's approach. It's a bit disconcerting to find that his visitor, who is larger than a skyscraper, feels closer in size to John than it does to Virgil.

 _Save the sob story for later, Zee. I've got business with the man. Now, scoot!_

There's a gasp of surprise from 'Zee,' and then--to John's surprise--something that feels like a deep bow of respect.

Zee scoots.

 _Zee's a good kid_ , Virgil says. _Still an idealist even after getting shanked by someone she trusted. That's either admirable or really, really stupid. Jury's still out on that one._

John can tell he's leaning a bit more towards 'stupid.'

He moves in closer to John, adjusting his presence so he's not quite so overwhelming. John senses that he's holding something carefully deep inside him, and that it takes more effort not to crush it by accident.

What is it?

 _Not what. Who. I didn't even think to look for her until you let that little bit slip. Had to look into some other things, too. Anyhow, it took me ten years rooting around to find her. Talk about looking for a microscopic needle in an infinite haystack. There's not much left of her, and there's some, well... take a look for yourself._

The thing Virgil holds out to him is curled in on itself in pain and fear. He sees a shade of red that makes him cry out in guilt and grief.

 _John Winchester, meet Anna Milton. Otherwise known as Hanael._

She looks human, and yet she doesn't. She flickers between two states of being and she bleeds out blue-white light with every breath.

Her. I killed her, John says.

 _No._ You _didn't_ , Virgil says, and there is a grief there that John has never heard from him before. _She's got--will have--a weird history with your boys_.

Will have? There's a future for his boys? John tells himself that he can't trust what Virgil says, but it's hard not to hope.

 _And she has a history with you._

But John is dead. He doesn't remember this woman, other than the flash of him killing her. He also remembers that she tried to kill Sam before he was born.

 _Yeah, about that..._

Virgil sounds guilty, but it's the kind of guilty that comes from being caught, not from remorse.

 _There's a few things you should know before you tell me to feed her to Rags for trying to kill your boys. I didn't catch it earlier, but now that I've tracked down Little Orphan Anna here, it looks like maybe there's some things about your memory that we need to get up to speed on_.

Such as? He's not about to trust someone who's making excuses for the woman who tried to kill his family.

 _There's some things in there that don't belong to you. And there are a few things that should be there but aren't._

John doesn't understand.

 _You wouldn't. I'm not sure I do, either. Anyhow, now that some of those memories are knocking loose, maybe you will understand what's going on when I try to explain it. Let's start with this: My name isn't Virgil._

John is shocked. Completely and utterly shocked.

 _Nice sarcasm, bro. Anyhow, my name is Gabriel and I'm an archangel._

For effect, Gabriel conjures up a chorus of people saying 'Hi, Gabriel!' as if being an archangel is something you went to twelve-step meetings to get over.

 _Also, like I said before, I'm dead. How's that for a bummer of an ending?_

John is still stuck on the whole archangel thing.

Angels? Angels are _real?_

Shadowy wings flare in the void. He remembers wings of soot, a story of soot that was collected as a holy relic.

He sees a hand of lightning, reaching down to crush him.

 _  
_Yeah... That would be Raphael. Long story, there. Anna use to be one, too. Not an archangel, though. Anyhow, I managed to get myself killed a few years after you do, and--_   
_

Angels are real, and you're the Archangel Gabriel?

John remembers the little prayer Mary always used to say. In retrospect, it sounds more like a warning.

 _Uh, didn't you notice I got all cute with verb tenses just now? Are you even paying attention?_

It all makes sense. He had been thinking of a civil war amongst demonkind, not a war between demons and what would be their worst enemy.

But... angels couldn't be _real_ , could they?

 _Oh, for... Can you just let that_ go _for a moment? It's story-time. Let me tell you what leads up to that bummer of an ending._

 

 **1995**

"Singer Salvage."

Everything was going wrong. Even something so simple as Bobby not being the one to answer the phone. John gritted his teeth. "Dean, I need to speak to Bobby. Now."

"Dad!" Dean's voice lit up like a box of fireworks. "Hey, when are you--"

"I said _now_ , Dean."

There was a pause and an intake of breath before Dean did as he was told and ran the phone over to Bobby.

 _"Bobby, it's Dad, I think something's happened..."_

He overheard a brief argument as Bobby told Dean to go drive himself into town and pick them up something for dinner.

 _"You've got two working legs, four credit cards, and three driver's licenses, so put 'em to some goddamn use, kid. Now, git! You standing around with your thumb up your ass ain't doing either of us any good."_

A door slammed in the background.

"Sorry about that, John. From the sound of things, I figured--"

"Bill's dead."

John heard a whisper that could have been a prayer or a curse. "What happened?" Bobby asked, and the rawness of it hit John hard.

What happened? John still wasn't sure.

"I fucked up." That's all there was to it, in the end. It wasn't a lie, not really. One literal misstep, and he had lost Bill.

"God damn it, John. What did you do?"

Not enough. Too little, too late.

"It tricked me." Again, not a lie. "We--I mean, I got careless and..."

What else could he say? He should have been ready for the worst when he lost sight of Bill. He should have been prepared.

"Oh, God. Ellen," Bobby said. John had never imagined he could sound so broken.

"I know," John whispered. "I'm heading out there now."

"You don't have to--"

"Damn it, Bobby. I'm not pawning this off on someone else. Besides, she deserves to hear it in person and she deserves to hear it from me."

There was a long, long silence. Bill was one of those people you just couldn't imagine dying. For him to be death-still, death-quiet, it seemed to be everything that Bill Harvelle was not.

"It was my fault," John said, in case Bobby hadn't picked that up. "I thought I was ready, but I wasn't."

He wasn't ready. Nowhere close. And now he only had ten years to get ready.

"I'm not in any position to judge, John. You know that."

He wanted to, though. John could hear it. John would welcome it. Bill was dead, and someone had to be at fault. Ellen would now go through what he'd gone through twelve years ago, and it was all his fault. Not directly, but if Bill had been with Caleb, or Rufus, or Daniel, maybe things would have been different.

Or maybe if Bobby hadn't gotten his leg broken in a stupid accident in the scrap yard two weeks ago, it would have been his body John had to salt and burn. Or if Ellen had won that last argument, he would be driving out to Nebraska to tell Bill Harvelle that his wife was dead.

"I hate this life," Bobby said after a while, and John knew exactly what he meant. Never safe, always waiting for news that someone else you knew had died a horrible or meaningless death.

John wanted out. He wanted the boys out. From time to time, he had thought of leaving them with someone, just like Elkins had told him to do. Someone like Ellen, maybe, and what would that have been like, what would it be like if they had known Bill and thought of him as family...

If he left them, they'd be mad, but they'd understand. Dean might claim he didn't, but he would. Eventually.

Until yesterday, that had been an option. He'd been thinking of it seriously, even though Dean was sixteen and acting like he was a good five years older than that. It might have been too late for him, but maybe not for Sam. At least, that's what he had thought.

Now even that scant hope of normal had been taken away from him. From them.

"I'll be there day after tomorrow. Keep an eye on Sam, okay?"

Bobby snorted. "You were thinking maybe I wasn't already?"

No. Of course not. But John wasn't ready to say why he was so scared for Sam. Not yet, and maybe not ever.

"I've gotta go. I don't want to do this, but I have to." He almost didn't say the next thing he thought of because it was so damned selfish, but he said it anyway. "Ellen's never going to forgive me."

"Probably not," Bobby said with a gentleness that nearly broke him.

There wasn't anything more to say after that, so they both hung up without saying good-bye.

John had nearly a solid day's worth of driving to think about what he hell he was going to say to Ellen. He went over each and every possibility in detail, nearly getting himself lost in the process.

 _The story's too damn big, and I'm nothing but a puppet or a pawn or maybe not even that much._

No, not even that much at the end. John turned on the tape player and cranked the loudest rock he could to keep himself awake and keep himself from thinking, but every drumbeat sounded like the gunshot that had ended Bill Harvelle's life.

He gripped the wheel tight and kept driving. He did not turn down the music.

Bill should not have died. John had led the demon right to him, but there should have been a way to save Bill. He could have been faster, smarter, better-prepared, better-armed, _something_. And now Ellen and Jo had to live with his failure.

There was one thing he could do for them, though. He could give them something that he had craved for the past twelve years.

By the time he crossed out of Utah into Colorado, he knew what he would tell Ellen. She'd hate him forever, but what did that matter?

He _could_ maybe find some way let her know that Bill's death had given him the closest thing to a solid lead he had had in over a decade, but what the hell good would that do her?

Better that he told her a tidy little lie based on half truths. Something that came out of that gate got Bill, but it was gone now. Dead and dusted. That would do, as much as anything could 'do' at a time like this.

Ellen would know that her husband was lost, but she would also believe that he was avenged. That was better than knowing that he'd died as a bit player in someone else's story.

He had barely turned off the highway into the Roadhouse's gravel lot when he saw Ellen step out the front door. She stopped hard when she got a look at the car and saw a driver but no passenger. Her knees buckled and she grabbed at the door frame for support. John pulled right up to the entry, and she kept her eyes on him the entire time and he made himself not look away. He knew what she was feeling, and he knew there was nothing he could say that would make any kind of difference at all.

He couldn't hear her, but he saw her face go pale and he saw her mouth as she shook her head and whispered _oh, no, no, no... no_ over and over again.

Although he couldn't hear it, it sounded just like the screams in his own head as he looked up and realized what it was he saw on the ceiling of Sam's nursery.

When he got out of the car, he knew she would see this moment in dreams for years to come. She would hear the sound of the Impala's door slamming. She would hear the sound of his feet on the gravel as he walked up to tell her the news she already knew. Over and over again. Forever.

 

 **2006**

There were times when John wished that the transporter tech from Star Trek had been made into reality the way those flip-out communicators had come into being as cell phones. The drive from New Haven up to Falmouth, Massachusetts wasn't long as he counted drives, but it was still too long.

Then, once he got to Falmouth, it took him longer than it should have to find Harry's place. He drove past the unmarked turnoff at least three times. Harry's driveway was less a driveway than a long and rutted dirt road that ran through an infinity of scrub oak and poison ivy.

When he came out at the end, the place was not anything like he had expected. A tidy, gray-shingled cottage was fronted by a patchy if well-tended lawn and a few flowering shrubs. The scrub oak opened to a clearing just as a dirt road gave way to a crushed-shell drive edged with painted white rocks. Weather-beaten cedars framed a view of the ocean in the back.

Yes, the house had been hung with hex signs and devils' traps, but the quality and placement had them looking more like decoration than protection.

Other than some obvious and fairly recent storm damage--a split cedar in the back and a blue tarp tacked down overhalf of the roof--the place looked better kept than most hunters' residences.

The front porch was uncovered, and someone was out there in a rocking chair, taking advantage of the full sun. A half-empty glass of whiskey on the rocks sat on a small table next to him.

When the truck started crunching down the driveway, the man looked up, but he made no move to stand.

John parked, then headed up the porch steps without invitation, and the man finally unfolded himself and stood up from his rocker. He moved slowly, as if in pain, but he didn't wince. Even though he probably wasn't much older than John, he was old-man skinny, and once-black hair was patched unevenly with steel gray.

"You're Harry Wagner?" John snapped.

"The same." Harry stretched, working out creaks and kinks. He was easily as tall as Sam, but was maybe half as wide at best, a scarecrow in khakis and a blue polo shirt. He held out a hand and smiled. The smile was broad, but the eyes showed an open suspicion that did more to put John at ease than friendliness would.

"Winchester, right? Bill told me about you, way back when. Said you were in-country the same time we were, back in seventy, seventy-one?"

Shaking his hand was like picking up a bundle of broken pencils. It was hard to picture this man digging up a grave or plunging a knife into anything but a steak. The hands, so bony, were covered with ink and paint splots, barely any scars, and nothing resembling a callus.

"That was a long time ago," John said, but that was it. He didn't care to tread on any of the land mines in their common history. "Now, how the hell do you--"

"How are Sam and Dean?" Harry said as if they were old friends. "I assume they've finished up in Indiana by now, or we probably wouldn't be talking like this now. Anyhow, come inside, Mr. Aframian, and let me get you a drink. You'll need one."

John followed him inside, into a galley kitchen that showed no sign of grease, but had plenty of empty glasses on the counter. The only food in sight was a box of Saltines. "Look. This isn't a social call. How do you know all the stuff you're telling me?"

Harry poured two drinks, apparently forgetting about the one he'd left outside. He kept peering out the window over the sink as he spoke. "It will be interesting to see how much I can tell you in person. I'm actually a little surprised you made it here to talk to me. Did you run into any bad weather on the way?"

"No. Should I have?"

"Possibly." Harry handed him a glass that had the equivalent of three drinks in it and led him through to the back of the house.

The tiny living-slash-dining room was full of light and air, but still reminded him of Bobby's place in its pervasive clutter. In Harry's case, though, the books had been replaced with piles of sketchbooks, tubes of paint, and mason jars full of brushes and pencils. Instead of dust and must, he smelled turpentine. What had once been a nice hardwood floor was dappled with paint, two folding easels were propped in a corner, and dozens of canvases were leaned up against the white walls four and five deep.

Most of the paintings were serene seascapes or conservative still lifes of shells and other beach detritus. Others, however, were frighteningly realistic pictures of things John had hunted. Harry had even gotten the vampire teeth right, something John had never seen in any other illustration.

"I tried to sneak that into a book cover commission I had, but I was told it wasn't 'sexy' enough," Harry said complete with air quotes when John pointed this out. "I kept running into the same issue with werewolves. Ghosts, though, ghosts do well. So do wraiths and rugarus."

"Wait. You actually sell these?"

"On occasion. Publishers, video game companies, the occasional issue of 'Fantasy and Science Fiction,' that sort of thing. I've even been nominated for a Chesley award a few times. Never won, though," he said regretfully. "The seascapes do well with the tourists. Well enough that I can make a living, anyway."

John wasn't sure what he would do if he saw a truly realistic monster on the cover of one of those books Dean sometimes read. Go track down the artist and interrogate the hell out of him, probably, just like he was doing now.

"No matter. Come in here and sit down. I've had enough sun for the day." Harry picked up a binder-clipped stack of paper and led John out back.

The living room opened onto another porch, this one covered and screened in. It had a narrow waterfront view, but the shoreline was more swamp than beach.

John sat down in a wicker chair that was far more comfortable than it looked. Unlike the main room of the house, the porch was tidy. Harry winced as he sat down, and let out a hiss of pain.

"Sorry. I'm not doing too well these days. I think that's maybe why I'm risking telling you all of this instead of going and hiding under a rock for the next twenty years. And speaking of risks, keep an eye on the sky, would you?"

"Sure. Now, how about you tell me how where you're getting all this information. Ellen told me, and I quote, that you have as much psychic ability as a cinder block."

"How nice of her," Harry said, puckering as if he'd just taken a swig of lemon juice instead of whiskey. That was a surprise. Ellen had sounded very fond of Harry, so John had assumed the reverse would be true.

"So, how do you do it?" If he kept asking, Harry might eventually answer that question. As it was, though, John was starting to get a headache. "How did you know I sent Sam and Dean to Indiana? I had been planning to go myself."

Harry looked genuinely surprised. "Really? That I didn't know."

"So, what _do_ you know?"

Harry settled back in his chair with another wince or two. His eyes were so deep-set they almost disappeared into his skull at this angle. "I know that you called them from Sacramento, and that Sam answered the phone. You two butted heads, which I'm guessing is usual for you two. Then Dean took the phone and you gave him the names. I'm not sure what else you told him."

"And?"

"And while I don't know too many precise details of what happens next, I do know that Sam and Dean split paths for a bit, but that all gets corrected before too long, and meanwhile Dean gets himself into a bit of a pickle that may leave him feeling somewhat ambivialent about apple pie. They also manage to encounter a nasty bit of work named Meg." Harry picked up the binder clipped stack of papers and passed it to John. "Here. I'll warn you, though, it's not pleasant reading."

"How so?" John took the papers. The front page seemed innocuous enough:

 

  
**Scarecrow**

Number Eleven of the Supernatural series

A Novel  
by  
Carver Edlund

 

"Far too many crimes against comma useage. Also, the man never met an adverb he didn't like. I'm afraid that's only the first two chapters and synopsis only," Harry said. It arrived two weeks before I got hold of you at Missouri's. I have to wonder, though--who would name their child after a state? And _why?_ "

John turned through the pages, scanning as fast as he could. His conversation with the boys up to the point where Dean grabbed the phone from Sam was written out word for fucking word.

"Where did you get... Who's this Carver Edlund and where can I find him?" John's skimming confirmed that Sam had parted ways with Dean and had actually started to head out to California to find John. He felt a cold weight settle in his stomach, and he skipped to the synopsis to verify what Harry had told him.

"I got it from my agent, and I have no idea who Carver Edlund is. It's a pen name, and all I know the person behind it is that my first and only serious attempt to reach him--or her--cost me half my roof. What's the sky doing?"

"Nothing," John said after a quick glance. What he had just read at the very end of the synopsis told him that 'a nasty bit of work' was one hell of an understatement when it came to this Meg Masters girl.

He flipped back to the front page. "Book eleven? There's _ten more_ of these fucking things?"

"Only three have hit the shelves so far. The writer's a hack, but he's a productive hack. The first one came out just in time for the Christmas remainder table sales. They're not doing well, and let me just say that the eventual cover illustrations didn't help. The publishers did have the good taste to try to get me in from the start, but more about that later. Usually, a fantasy or horror novel is good for a laugh because of how much they get wrong, but in this case..."

John reread the synopsis. It didn't make his hair stand up any less. While the synopsis was frustratingly vague on some key points, it was obvious that this 'Meg' was a demon and she was in touch with a far more powerful demon. Also, there was some reason that this powerful demon--most likely Azazel--wanted the boys left unharmed, at least for now. That was not in any way reassuring.

"This writer was frighteningly accurate. Once I saw how many details the _soi disant_ Mr. Edlund was getting right--including some rather obscure ones--I did a little digging. It only took me a few days to connect 'Sam,' 'Dean,' and 'John' to the stories Bill had told me."

"So, three have been published and this is the eleventh. Where are the other seven manuscripts?"

"Those seven--and a few more besides--are in a safety deposit box in New Bedford," Harry said. He took another drink and looked long and hard at John over the rim of his glass.

"Give me the key." This had gone on long enough.

"I would be happy to, but like I told you--this is an exchange." Harry's grin made his bony face look even more skeletal. "Story for story. That's how it works."

"What can I tell you? You're the one with the sneak peek into my life," John said, shaking the manuscript.

"Not your life, John. Your sons' lives," Harry said, sounding almost apologetic. "They're the main characters in this trashy little series. You, you're a bit player. Important, yes, but mostly keeping to the shadows and between the lines. I only knew you were at Missouri Moseley's thanks to manuscript number nine. Which is titled 'Home,' touchingly enough. It was the first time you showed up since the first book. To make a long story short, I'm running out of time and the books aren't telling me the only thing I really want to know in all of this."

"Which is?"

"I want you to tell me the truth about how Bill Harvelle died."


	7. Part Seven

**1995**

There hadn't been any hint, any omen, about how wrong it would all go.

Bill had talked his ear off about everything and anything all the way from Nebraska to California. By the time they were in Nevada, John knew more about Buddhism, horse racing, offshore oil rigs, Renaissance artists, medieval surgery, and British science fiction than he had ever known there was to know. They even ended up talking about _Star Trek_ for nearly two hours straight. If he hadn't worked with Bill once before, he'd have wondered how on earth they could ever hope to sneak up on anything.

On the job, though, Bill was quiet as a cat. He wasn't a small man, but he could insinuate himself through the tightest spaces without a rustle when he wanted.

After they pulled off the road and hid the Impala behind some scrub, they picked their way down into the arroyo. It was a hot miserable day, and the dry air tasted of metal and smoke. Any scent of sulfur would have been drowned out. They each had a canteen, but the water warmed up too fast and didn't slake their thirst as much as it should have.

Bill took point and John took slack. Every now and then, Bill looked over his shoulder to ask John a silent 'you feel that?'

John would nod. It was obvious that something had happened here and might still be happening.

Bill picked a trail that was circuitous but gave them decent and silent footing. John just wondering how much further it was when Bill paused to duck under a branch and turned to flash John a quick 'almost there' grin, then headed sure-footed down a steep grade and up the following rise.

John followed his steps, catching each foothold just as Bill had. He did fine until he tried to brace against what he thought was a solid outcropping of rock.

It wasn't an outcropping. It was simply a rock stuck in the dry soil, and Bill's passage had knocked it loose. John caught himself barely in time, merely straining his ankle instead of breaking or spraining it. He'd managed to stay quiet through it all, though. In fact, he was quiet enough that Bill didn't hear him.

Instead of waiting, Bill had continued on and was out of sight by the time John made it up the last slope. It only took a minute for John to catch up to him; Bill had stopped cold a few yards past where they broke tree cover and was staring at the rock face in front of them.

The ground sloped sharply down from where they stood, and then back up to the cliff. Bits of dried vine clung to the cliff except in one place. In that one place, a crack split the rock like a sideways smile. It was hard to look at directly. At least it was for John. His eyes kept wanting to skid to one side or the other of it. Bill didn't seem to have a problem, though. He looked at it so intently it was like he was trying to see through to the other side. If anything, John thought he'd have trouble looking away.

No one else was around, and John wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.

John unslung his backpack. "Okay, Bill. Time to vandalize a state park," he whispered. Along with copious quantities of silver, mandrake, and holy water, they each had three cans of Rustoleum spray paint. Cutting off the hellgates might not stop whatever it was that the demons were doing, but it would slow them down and maybe through a good-sized wrench in the works. If they set it up right, they'd catch one in the process of escaping or returning, and they could have themselves a good old-fashioned interrogation session.

Bill let his backpack slide from his shoulder, and he didn't try to catch it as it fell to the ground.

"Nah, it's a little late for that."

Bill sounded as cheerful as ever, but the cheerfulness had an edge to it.

"What? What do you mean, it's late?" Something was wrong, very, very wrong. John reached for his gun. He had only lost sight of Bill for a minute. One fucking minute.

"Late as in too late. You've already lost." Bill turned around and grinned way too wide. "Hi there, Johnny. Good to see ya again."

John looked the thing in the eyes. He expected to see solid black.

He saw sulfurous yellow.

"You're looking good, John. A bit rough around the edges, and you've got some gray coming in, but still--looking good. Your neck healed up real nice. I have to say," he said, patting down Bill's body, "this isn't a bad meatsuit, all told. I've had worse."

The demon used Bill's mouth to smile, but it looked nothing like Bill's smile.

John kept his gun on the thing even though a gunshot wouldn't stop the demon. All it would do was hurt or even Bill. "Who are you?"

"Aw, don't you remember me? I'm hurt! Mary and I used to be so close. And I think you'd remember what I did to you when I interrupted your happy little moment."

John went for a vial of holy water as he began muttering the rites of exorcism.

"That won't hurt me, John. Nothing you can do can hurt me. I'm completely unhurtable." The thing drew Bill's gun. "See?"

It put the gun to Bill's head.

John broke off the rite as he leapt forward desperately. He almost made it.

His hand was on Bill's arm when something yanked him from mid-air and slammed him hard up against the rock. The crack was just inches from John's body, and he could feel it pulling at him.

The demon was laughing when it pulled the trigger, blowing out Bill's brains and right eye.

"Oh god, oh god, no..." John's ribs bent. They began to crack.

"Oh, there's no god here." The demon didn't seem to care that half its head was missing. "It's just like that song 'Imagine.' Mary used to like John Lennon, didn't she? Or was she a more of a Paul girl? The look I got inside her daddy's head didn't go into much detail. Now, that was a mighty fine meatsuit. All _kinds_ of knowledge kicking around in there. It told me exactly how to push sweet Mary's buttons."

"What... did you..." Speech became impossible. Pain crackled through his chest in a series of sharp _snaps_. He gasped for breath and tasted blood.

The demon grinned with what was left of Bill's mouth. "What did I do to her? Made a deal, the usual. She loved you so, so much. You'd be surprised what that little bitch was willing to do to save your pathetic life. I gave her ten years together with you she shouldn't have. Ten years, and she had two healthy, lovely boys at the end of it that never should have been born. With all that I was generous enough to give her, she shouldn't have protested when I came to pay the price."

He had _died?_ Mary had paid for his life with her own? Was that it? She shouldn't have, she never should have, but then the boys...

"It's a real shame, if she hadn't woken up, she'd never have even known I'd come to collect. You'd all be a happy family right now, if she weren't such a light sleeper. You'd be worried about paying for college, not about... _me_."

Through the pain, what the demon said barely registered, but John heard 'collect' and knew that his most paranoid theories were right.

The demon walked right up to him, so close he could feel the heat of Bill's body. Was Bill still in there, seeing all this, hearing all this?

"Last time I saw you, I should have just burned you up instead of throwing you down the stairs and getting myself out of Dodge," he drawled as he looked John up and down. The undamaged side of Bill's face tightened in anger as the demon reached up. "You startled me, you know. You'd picked up a passenger since I'd seen you last. An important one."

Bill's hand felt hellfire hot against the side of John's face. John was cold. So cold. Everything was still being crushed slowly inside of him. He was bleeding out and nothing could stop it.

"Well, it's gone now, and you don't have any clue who it was, do you?" The demon smiled again. "You know, you had me worried back then, Johnny. I thought you might have actually caused me some trouble if I'd tried to tangle with you, but not so much, maybe. Well, that doesn't matter any more. It's time for lights-out, Johnny. Nighty-night!"

The demon pulled its hand away, but it held it where John could see as it squeezed and ended it all. If he could have, John would have screamed in agony.

Without warning, the pressure stopped. The demon whipped around to look back at the woods.

A little girl stood there. She couldn't have been much older than Sam. Long dark hair, Asian features. A red pendant that stood out like a splotch of blood on her lavender shirt.

John wanted to yell for her to run, to get away, but he couldn't. There was nothing he could do for her except watch her die.

She stood her ground. "You are not to touch that one," she told the demon in a voice that was childish, sweet, and utterly terrifying. Her eyes fixed on the demon the way a hawk's might fix on a mouse.

"Why? There's nothing left in there, honey." He knocked hard on John's head a couple of times. "See? Empty. Your boss has been and gone. Anyhow, I guess this is my cue. I've got people to see. Deals to make. Another crop to sow. I don't have time to tangle with you assholes."

He turned to wink at John with an empty socket. "Maybe I'll be seeing you in ten years, give or take. Or not. Bye!"

Bill's ruined head tilted back, and demonsmoke erupted from his mouth into the sky to vanish in the wildfire haze. His body crumpled to the ground as John slid down from where he'd been pinned against the rock.

The little girl walked over to them. She stepped over Bill's body, heedless of the carnage. No trace of emotion showed, but there was something distinctive there, something oddly familiar. Her red pendant swung back and forth as she walked. It was a circle of red stone, with a design inlaid in silver. John had seen that design many times before, but thought was becoming difficult. His vision was graying out. He was freezing cold.

"The abomination was right. You are not who I thought you were," she said. She looked back at Bill Harvelle's body and sighed. "This should not have happened. It never should have come this far."

No, it shouldn't have. He had found the demon that killed Mary, only to be killed by it in turn. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. And the boys... what would happen to Dean, to Sam...

The demon child hunched down. Her necklace dangled in front of him. A silver circle on red, a quartered labyrinth. Vietnam, he remembered. He had seen it there. Metal maze on bloody red. Good luck and long life.

Bad luck, hard life. It was almost funny, now that he was dying. Maybe he had died decades ago, blown to shreds. Maybe this was just a dream. A dying vision.

Yes. That was right. This was all a nightmare that had never happened. None of the bad. None of the good. He thought of that summer day, and the open road, and the last time he had really seen Mary.

He mourned the sons who had never been born.

"Someone should have been on guard," he thought he heard her say. She reached down to touch his face. "This is not over. You may still be required."

The last thing he heard before he fell into darkness was a sound like a thousand birds taking flight at once.

To his surprise, it was not the last thing he heard, ever. What woke him was the buzz of flies. He woke up, feeling like he was on fire and staring into an inferno.

He was so disoriented, it took him a while to notice that nothing was broken and nothing was bleeding. He could breathe again.

He was also badly sunburned. The demon child had healed him for some reason ( _you may still be required_ ) but had left him there to fry in the August sun. From the feel of things, the burn would blister. He was also thirstier than he could ever remember. He rinsed out his mouth with now-hot water from the canteen and spit before he drank. His spit was pink with blood.

It took him a moment before he could bring himself to drink. The flies had already started to gather on Bill's body. John tried to fan them away, but they wouldn't leave, not until he doused the body in salt and lighter fluid and set a match to it.

The sun was setting by the time he had finished burying Bill's bones. He was still piecing together what had happened, but he knew he couldn't tell anyone exactly what had happened or what he had heard. Not until he knew he could keep Sam safe.

* * *

He lied to Bobby, and when he stopped for the night, he rehearsed the lie he would tell Ellen. He tried to drink the memories away, but that night the fires that consumed Bill's body simply merged with the fires that had consumed Mary.

After talking to Ellen, he drove straight on through to Bobby's, repeating the story he had told her over and over again until he was sure he would get it right no matter who asked him.

Bobby and the boys were gone when he got back to Sioux Falls. A note had been left on the door for him, sealed in an envelope in the event of prying eyes. It said Bobby had taken the boys into town to go see Mortal Kombat (making it clear that this wasn't his choice by a long shot) and then get some pizza. He figured John wouldn't be up for company that evening.

John crammed down his disappointment even as he crammed the note in his pocket. He went inside, not even stopping to wash up before heading to the kitchen and helping himself to the first bottle of whiskey he could find.

He had almost kept driving and driving, past South Dakota, past everything, but something like autopilot had brought him back here to his boys.

In some ways, it was a relief not to have to deal with anyone, but then the whiskey started to knock down all the defenses he had flung up to get him through the drive and the visit to Ellen, and he was all alone. Alone with all those unfiltered thoughts and memories.

Before long, he wasn't fit company for anyone, least of all himself.

Eventually, he heard Bobby's truck pull up and a door slam shut. Then, Sam calling out, jarringly loud and jubilant.

"Dad's home! Dad's home!"

Damn. He must have noticed the Impala. Footsteps pounded up the porch steps.

"Hold on, Sam! I need you to help me up these steps. Goddamn crutches..."

"Dad! Dad! You're back!" Sam tore into the living room, but stopped short when he saw John. The broad smile froze then fell. "Dad?"

"Not now, Sam," John said. He turned away. "Go help Bobby."

Sam started to protest. He looked at the table next to John, and the mostly empty whiskey bottle. His nose wrinkled and his lips tightened to a thin line that was becoming all too familiar. "Did you drink all of that?"

"I said, go help Bobby." He gave Sam a look. No further comment would be welcome.

The look on Sam's face faded into something very adult and very disapproving. He didn't budge.

"What did I just tell you, son?"

Silence. He and Sam locked eyes. The stubbornness John saw there was much like his own, but Sam caved and looked away when Dean came into the room.

"Dad! Are you okay?" Dean asked, nearly frantic.

"I'm fine, Dean." He should be dead three times over. He could still remember what it felt like to have his lungs crushed to jelly. But he couldn't say any of that. "I'm just... tired. And the damn sunburn itches."

Dean clearly didn't believe him, but he nodded at the unspoken order. "C'mon, Sam. Bobby needs our help." He put a hand on Sam's shoulder, but Sam didn't look like he was going to budge any time soon. He simply kept looking at John, waiting for an answer to a question that had nothing to do with how much John had been drinking.

"Sorry about this, Dad. I've got it," Dean said. "Sam, c'mon. Let's not do this, okay?" The last part was pleading, and directed as much to John as it was to Sam.

"A little help out here?" Bobby called from outside.

"I just need some time to myself, boys," John said.

Sam didn't look any less disappointed, but he muttered a 'yessir,' and let Dean lead him away.

The boys' silent tension burst into a quarrel as soon as they hit the kitchen. The last thing John heard as they stomped out the door was them calling each other names.

Just a few hours ago, he had craved seeing his boys the way his ruined lungs had craved oxygen. He had hoped the whiskey would ease the craving. All it had done, though, was make it harder for him to not think about what the demon had said. It had poisoned what should have been a reunion that had him on his knees with gratitude.

So many implications. For him. For Sam. It would take time to sort out.

Already, he regretted the past few minutes. He wished he was sober. He wished he hadn't shooed the boys away.

What was done was done, though. Sam was pissed, but he would get over it eventually, John told himself.

As he thought, the look of disapproval faded by the next morning. After lunch, Sam crept up and gave John a silent, one-armed hug that John returned in equal silence before Sam chased after Dean to nag him about a promise to practice soccer with him.

That night, Bobby and John talked about a what might be werewolf down in Flagstaff while Sam told Dean all about a local soccer club he'd been invited to join.

"Full moon's in three days, Bobby. Is there anyone closer by who can go after it?" John hoped the answer was no. Sitting around Bobby's place and thinking was not what he needed right now. He also didn't want Bobby to start asking questions he might not be able to answer. Then, there were those maps Bill had left in the car. John wanted to make sure he was alone when he looked at those.

"No one I'd trust," Bobby said. He looked a little too innocent, as if he knew John needed this. "If you want, you can leave the boys here. If you don't catch the thing right off, it could be another month before you get a chance."

A few days ago, John would have taken Bobby up on his offer without a second thought. Now, the idea of leaving the boys for a whole month sent a chill straight through him. He couldn't stop thinking about what the demon had said about crops and collection. "No. I've got a few things I'll want to follow up on right after, so I'll take them with me."

Dean looked relieved, but Sam's face fell.

"But the soccer club..."

"Don't whine. You can do soccer later," John said.

The muttered 'that means _never_ ,' was not meant for him to hear, and it was easier to ignore it. Besides, John had other worries about Sam that far outweighed the start of a rebellious attitude.

 

 **Now**

 _Okay. Storytime. Let me tell you about your boys. You want the suspenseful version or the dull, unexciting version?_

Cut to the chase.

 _Holy crap, you are one of the most boring, joyless people I have ever met. Fine. Your boys are the culmination of a millennia-old plot to jump-start the apocalypse. Sam's been primed as Lucifer's vessel, and Dean's supposed to be Michael's. There's enough irony and parallels and symbolism in the whole mess to choke an English major. Anyhow, your boys manage to trap Mikey and Lucy in a cage, but I don't know too many details about that. I was sidelined before the main event._

John is confused. Very confused. If he remembers correctly, Gabriel was killed by Lucifer, but how could that happen if Sam and Dean had captured him? Also, from the sound of things, Azazel's plans are still in the works. Or is it too late?

 _Azazel sure likes to rub things in, doesn't he? He's a real prick, that one. Gloat, gloat, gloat. And no, it's not too late. Things can still go very wrong. Anyhow, let me fill you in a bit on Limbo._

Wait... go back a second. You're saying my boys defeated Lucifer? Satan himself?

 _Yup. Pretty much._

John rolls that thought around in his mind for a while. It's a nice one.

Well, hot damn.

 _Are you waiting for me to compliment you on your parenting skills?_

There's a guilty silence from John and a long, thoughtful one from Gabriel.

 _To be honest, you kinda sucked._

I know, John admits.

 _But I've seen worse!_

John acknowledges that might be so, but he doesn't think it would be wise to acknowledge the flicker of pain behind Gabriel's aggressive cheer. It's familiar to him. It's a way of masking hurts in that even silence cannot achieve.

 _Anyhow, Limbo. This is where angels end up when we die. It's hard to kill us, so there's not many of us here. A few hundred or so, and the number keeps dropping. I think I told you that the longer we stay here, the more we dwindle and decay. Anyhow, I've been here for about three hundred years. Another three hundred, and all that will be left of me is a bunch of Monty Python and Marx Brothers quotes repeating themselves over and over in the darkness._

Again, John doesn't understand. Gabriel died after John, so how can he have been here longer?

 _Liiimmm-bo_ , Gabriel says in a way that gives a definite impression of laciviously shimmying hips dipping low under a bar held up by a pair of scantily clad women. _It's all timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly in here, and never mind, you wouldn't understand the reference. To make a very long story short, Limbo is an interstitial space. Kind of like packing peanuts surrounding and separating the different realities and keeping them from colliding. Heaven and all its parts, Hell, Sheol, Purgatory, Xibalba, Jigoku, Orun Buburu, Valhal-ooh-la-la, and lots of other suburbs you probably haven't heard of. Oh, and all the different bubbles of creation. Alternate realities--you know, Evil Spock and all that._

Packing peanuts?

 _Right. Except useful. Limbo feeds into creation. Theoretically, we angels, who are the closest thing you get to the raw stuff of creation, will dissolve into this timeless, placeless place and be remade._

Kind of like compost in a garden?

 _Oh,_ thank _you for that_ lovely _analogy_. Gabriel sounds less offended than he does annoyed that he didn't think of it himself. _I won't explain the physics of it, but when we die, we come in here randomly. The flow of time diminishes us, and pulls at us until there's nothing left but those babbling voices you hear. It's easy to fall apart in here. It's hard to stay linear. Staying near these chains helps. They're connected to Hell, yes, but they're also connected to time. That's why good old Azzie can fish you out in chronological order._ Gabriel sighs, and Limbo swirls. _I thought I knew how this place worked, but I didn't realize it would be this difficult. There's so much less of me, now._

So, how did he know about Limbo at all? Azazel didn't know.

 _Azazel's a demon. An unusual one, but still a demon. Angels, we know about Limbo because we use it. If we need to move through time, we just sort of... skate across the outer layers of it. But we don't do it often. We lose too much of our power, and eventually, our selves._

John doesn't quite follow, but he tells Gabriel to go on.

 _The strongest of us can also use it to make temporary micro-creations where we can explore what-ifs. Micro-creations are fun. I used to play with them all the time. I made a few for your boys when I--aaaand that's a whole 'nother story and you really don't want to hear about our holodeck adventures right now._

Actually, yes I d--

 _Time for that later, mi amigo! We were talking about how I found out about what happened_ apres mort. _I was able to piece the story together thanks to a few of my siblings who came in here from further down the timeline... and let's just say it's more than a little troubling that there's still angels being killed off after the apocalypse got shut down. You'd have thought it would all be hugs and bunnies after that, but no._

There is a long pause, and there is a surge of regret that surprises John. It even surprises Raguel.

 _I had sidelined myself for a long time. A very long time_ , Gabriel says. _Otherwise I might have seen which way the wind was blowing._

Gabriel's attention shifts from John. _Hey, Zee! Get your sweet wings over here._

The curious thing-- _angel_ \--from earlier drifts over.

 _John Winchester, this is Zadkiel. Zee, this is John. She tells me you two met already. You know, back when you were both alive._

We have?

There's a quiet affirmation from Zadkiel. There doesn't seem to be much left of the angel. Before, she had spoken readily, almost eagerly. Now, it's about as communicative as Raguel. John recalls what Gabriel had said about decay.

 _I've got a story for you, and I'll need Zee here to fill in a few of the juicier bits._

 

 **2006**

It took John nearly an hour to tell Harry what had happened. From time to time, he had stopped, either to recall a detail or to collect himself before moving on to the next part. It had been ten and a half years, and it was the first time he had ever told anyone the true story in full.

Harry listened without interrupting. His eyes shut with pain when John described how the demon put a bullet in Bill's head.

"God damn it..." he whispered when it was all over. "Why did he have to go with you?"

"He was filling in for a friend who had a busted leg," John said numbly. He had asked him that same question over and over and over. Every time he asked it, he also pictured Bobby with yellow eyes and half his head gone. Sometimes, in a world where she had won that last argument and taken Bill's place riding shotgun, it was Ellen.

"Just filling in?" Harry laughed softly. "Oh, that is so typical of him. Did Bill ever tell you how he got into hunting?"

John shook his head.

"I got pulled into hunting thanks to growing up in a haunted house. The ghosts killed my two sisters and left my mother blind. It nearly killed _me_ , but in searching around for someone who could help, I found a hunter who helped me get rid of the things. I know how _you_ got into the life. Bill, though..." He shook his head and laughed again. "Curious as a damned cat. We were in-country, and I was trying to help our translator with a ghost that had started troubling his village. Bill just decided to, well, _tag along_. And then he tagged along on another case. And another. He's the only hunter I ever met who hadn't lost someone before getting into the life."

Harry looked over at the far wall. John turned around to see what he was staring at. There were two framed sketches. One was of two young girls, both with deep-set eyes like Harry's. The other was a pencil portrait of Bill Harvelle. Harry had captured the grin perfectly.

"He was a good man," Harry said. "Things didn't... well, we began to drift apart somewhat around the time he found Ellen. Not entirely, but things just weren't the same. She was good for him, I think."

He sounded like he was talking himself into the idea.

"It got the idea when I was talking to Ellen that she thinks of you as a friend."

Harry snorted. "Of course she does. She won, and I don't even think she knew there was a contest." He took a drink. "I'm not sure Bill ever knew, either."

There was a bitter smile and something else John couldn't quite read, so he turned away to look at the swampy waterfront. What the hell was he supposed to say in response to something like that?

All he could do was sit there in an increasingly uncomfortable silence until Harry had finished wallowing in the past.

"Thank you for telling me what happened," Harry finally said. "When Ellen broke the news, she said it was because Bill got careless. Something sounded wrong about that. I thought it might have been to shield you from blame, but I have no idea why she would do that."

Perhaps it was to hide the fact that there were a bunch of loose ends, even if she was only hiding that fact from herself. John told himself it wasn't worth worrying about, and he almost believed himself.

"So why _now_? Why not track me down ten years ago?"

"What good would it have done? Even though Ellen was obviously hiding some of the sordid details, for a long time I thought Bill had simply met the same kind of stupid, pointless death that eventually gets most of us. The how didn't really matter much."

Harry downed the rest of his drink, then put the empty glass down and folded his hands over his stomach. "Then, I got a draft of the first of Mr. Edlund's books from my agent back in October. I like to work from full manuscripts when I can. It cuts down on the bookstore bills. It didn't take me long to notice that the lore and the casual lingo were spot-on."

"And that's when you called."

Harry picked up his glass and lifted it in congratulations. "Exactly. Once I read through it, I knew that what was described in there was real, no matter how badly written. Real, and apparently with an overarching story arc that meant something. I couldn't reach your sons, and that only proved to me that something was going on. It was probably stupid, but I decided to contact you. What happened on your end, by the way?"

John gave him a wry smile. "A burst of feedback that nearly punctured my eardrum. What about you? Weather, I'm guessing."

"Exactly. In this case, I was nearly killed by a freak, very localized, and somehow very _personal_ nor'easter. Because I am a sane man, I turned down the offer. I didn't tell the publisher the truth, of course. I told them it was about the money. They must have believed me, because they came back to me recently with a better offer after their second-choice artist turned out to be an even worse hack than the author. This time, I accepted the offer."

John couldn't help looking out to the sky. There were a few more clouds than before and a breeze came off the water, but he saw nothing unusually ominous.

"So, what changed your mind? Why'd you say yes?"

"Not to be melodramatic about it, but I'm dying, John. As the one online support group I've found that I can stand says, 'fuck cancer.' I found out a few weeks after I called you in October. I'd blame it on the manuscript, but the truth is, I hadn't been feeling well for months. At first I thought I only had two choices: I could die six months from now in a hospice with a nurse changing my diaper, or I could simply hoard pain pills until I have enough to wash them down with a bottle of good bourbon while I'm still _me_."

John thought he knew which of the two options Harry might have taken. "And then you found yourself a third option."

"Yes. Thank to Mr. Edlund's hackery, I may get myself killed, but now it might mean something. And given that you were a pivotal character in this story, I thought that maybe I could find out that Bill's death meant something, and wasn't just a stupid accident or him letting his curiosity get the better of him again."

John thought about that for a long time.

He shook his head, staring at the floorboards rather than look Harry in the eye. "I'm sorry. Bill was just a pawn in all of this." There was another part to that thought, one that he had been trying not to acknowledge for the past few days.

Or maybe he had been fighting the idea for much longer than that. He supposed it didn't matter, in the end.

"Just like me," he said finally.

Part of him still rankled at the idea, told him it was stupid. Of _course_ he was important. This was his story, after all. His family. His vengeance.

Harry chuckled. "I'll spare you the trite analogy about what happens to pawns when they cross the chessboard. I'm not sure it applies here, anyway. Besides, bringing chess into this is mixing the metaphors. We're talking about books, John. Books where you play a minor role, and Bill apparently has no role at all."

John looked at the manuscript again, and the conversation that had been written in detail weeks or even months before a word of it was even spoken aloud.

"So there's no part in this for me, other than as a plot device that put Sam and Dean right in the demon's path? If I hadn't called, they wouldn't have gone to Indiana. They wouldn't have fought over going to find _me_." He rolled up the manuscript and slapped it hard enough against his palm to send the binder clip clattering off across the porch. "This thing had me do the exact thing I have been trying to _avoid_ for the past twenty years!"

Harry picked up his glass and frowned to see that it was empty. He grimaced and put it back down. "Did it force you to, or did it simply record what would have happened, anyway?"

John thought about it, but no matter how he spun it, both amounted to more or less the same thing. Whether his hand was forced or the book was recording things that _would_ happen, it had the same effect in the end. Except...

He leaned forward, tapping his fingers together. The thought was elusive, and it was one of those things that hurt his mind when he tried to force it into making sense, but it was important. Something wasn't right.

"What is it, John? You're looking awfully constipated."

"You called me at Missouri's..." He had to take this slow and watch his mental footing. "You called me with a list of names."

"Well, yes. Of course. The synopsis made it clear what had happened to Holly and Vince. I was able to find out the other couples' names easily enough. It was tedious, yes, but it wasn't at all difficult."

 _Careful, careful_... John kept concentrating on the tapping of his fingers, but he was aware of the brisk salt wind that had picked up. He almost had it, but it felt like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces were moving and the table kept sliding around as if they were in a storm at sea.

"No, it wasn't difficult. I duplicated your research, and it didn't take long to find a connection between the names."

"Yes, whereas I knew the connection and found names to fit." Harry spoke slowly and carefully, as if he was following along the same twisty path as John. "So, in short, I read a story where you gave a list of names to your sons, and I then called and gave you a list of names. Which you then gave to your sons."

"Chickens and eggs," John muttered. He leaned back. "Until you called, I had no idea about disappearances in Indiana. If you hadn't called, how would I have found out about them? It's not a pattern I would have spotted on my own."

"Another hunter would have called you, asking for help, but no. If they did that, your phone message would have directed them to Dean." Harry scratched thoughtfully at his chin. He looked out at the water. While the wind had picked up, the water was still mostly calm. "I wonder..."

Pieces fell together, but were still not forming a whole.

"You were starting an analogy about books and about bit parts," John said. "How do plot holes fit into that?"

"The obvious answer is that Edlund is a hack," Harry joked.

John glowered at him. "What Edlund is, is next on my list once I take care of this fucking demon."

"The less obvious answer is that our author--or whoever he's working for--doesn't care much for the finer details of the story outside of whatever's happening to Sam and Dean. Yes, a few unlucky souls get dragged onto the page for the requisite love, blood, and rhetoric, but mostly we bide our time as we will until we're needed. And then we're dragged on whenever or however."

John tapped the rolled-up manuscript against his palm. He remembered listening to Jim and Bobby debate predestination versus free will, and he now wished he hadn't tuned most of it out.

"So, if Edlund or whoever he's working for needs me to be up in, say, Vancouver by tomorrow morning, I get knocked on the head and thrown into a cargo plane or something."

"Or you get kidnapped by a rogue circus troupe, or you fall into a freak wormhole, or an ailing artist gets a bee in his bonnet and starts--or completes--a paradox loop. The how doesn't matter. When you're off the page, you're free to do what you want. You could even take a vacation if you wanted."

John watched the water roughen as Harry blathered on. It was starting to look less like an extremely talented clairvoyant was recording details, and more like something was pulling strings. But who? The yellow-eyed demon? Those soot-winged demons? Whatever or whoever it was, it was doing what it could to make sure things happened as they were written.

"I wonder what would happen if _you_ tried to track down Edlund," Harry mused.

The wind surged through the screens. It tasted of salt.

"I wouldn't recommend it, though. I suppose it's best we just let things play their course."

John didn't believe that for a moment, but he thought knew what Harry was doing. He played along for the moment.

Both men went silent, and the weather started to quiet in response.

While John bided his time by poring through the partial manuscript as if more words might magically appear, Harry gazed up and out past swampy shoreline to the open sea. The water was still choppy, and a line of clouds was piled up on the horizon like a warning. When John looked back up, Harry was smiling.

It was not a very nice smile. It was also not directed at John.

Harry schooled his features, then stood up. This time he hissed with pain as he tried to stand straight.

"Thank you for coming by, John. I needed to hear that story."

"Wait. What about--"

Harry raised an eyebrow and put a finger to his lips.

"Want me to tell you what happens after 'Scarecrow'?" he said innocently. The sky started growing darker, and John felt his ears pop as the atmospheric pressure shifted abruptly. Harry winked at him. "No, you don't. You can just read the books as they're published like everyone else. It will be safe to do so, then, because it will be too late. Everything will have already happened. I'll see you out. Call me when you reach New Bedford? You're passing through there on your way back to wherever it is you're going, right?"

John grinned. It was just as friendly as the one Harry had sported earlier. "Depends on how busy I am. I've got a full day ahead of me."

Harry ripped a page out of one of his sketchbooks, folded it, and wrote down detailed instructions on the best way to get to New Bedford.

"Trust me--it's more than a little roundabout, but you'll avoid some awful construction this way. Don't try to make sense of it on a map. You'll just confuse yourself even more."

By the time they made it back out to the front porch, the heavy cloud cover had started growing patchy again. They headed down the oystershell driveway. A crow cawed from up in one of the cedars.

"I truly appreciate the visit, John. I don't have many friends left these days, but it's never too late to make new ones. Oh, how strange... there's something in that birdbath you're walking past just now."

John picked up his cue, and neatly fished the dull gold object out of the birdbath. A quick check showed him it was a safety deposit box key. The wind didn't change.

"Anyplace you recommend I stop while I'm in New Bedford?" John asked. "Also, I'm going to have to get some cash while I'm there."

Harry chuckled and shook his head. "I recommend Isaiah's on Pleasant Street, or I would if I felt like eating anymore. Excellent Portuguese food, and there just happens to be a bank across the street."

John nodded his understanding. "Sounds like a plan. Thanks, Harry."

As John drove off, he looked back to see Harry waving goodbye in the rearview mirror.

He clutched the key against the steering wheel tight enough to break skin, but he barely noticed. There was a safety deposit box full of answers waiting for him. He told himself they might not be the answers he wanted, or even needed, but he couldn't stop himself from quietly chanting _this is it, this is it, this is it_ as he headed up Route 28.

The directions sat on the passenger seat. Harry's handwriting was large enough that John could read it in casual flicks and glances. The directions were simple, even though Harry had said they were round-about. If he were in less of a rush, he would have checked the directions despite what Harry had told him. John preferred maps--he always had. Not only did they show you where you were going, they showed you any number of escape routes along the way.

What could be in those manuscripts? What was was stirring up the storms and electrical feedback kept Harry from getting in touch with Sam and Dean and simply telling them what was waiting for them down the road? He clutched the wheel even tighter and winced with pain.

The key was smeared with his blood when he finally let go of it and put it in the ashtray. He tried not to see the blood as an omen.

The directions took him to Route 6 and then to Point Road. Point Road was as straight and flat as a Kansas highway, although instead of fields stretching out to either side, he was hemmed in by cedars and old stone walls. He could only see a thin strip of sky overhead.

Aside from one wisp of cloud, the sky was blue.

A road sign told him he was four miles from Wing Cove. There was no mention of New Bedford or the highway spur Harry said should be about six miles ahead.

He pulled over on the narrow, sandy shoulder and checked the directions again. Then he pulled out the road atlas.

It took him less than a minute to find out that Harry had not sent him to New Bedford. Harry had sent him down a spit of land on a road that dead-ended at the sea.

John nearly broke the phone dialing Harry's number.

"Listen, Wagner. What the hell do you--"

"Did you finally look at the map or did you find my note?"

"What note? Stop ducking my questions! I looked at the map. Why the hell are you sending me into the middle of nowhere?

"Elex.. ex... _good!_ " Harry sounded like he had slammed down a few more drinks since John left. "No one around, I hope? Oh, the note's on the paper I gave you. Unfold it."

He did. On the reverse of the direction was a note that simply read _Call me_.

"I'm tired of your games, Harry. What the hell are you up-- No, forget it." John turned the ignition, forgetting that the truck was still on. He swore, and threw the truck into gear. "I'm done. I'm heading out to New Bedford. If those manuscripts aren't--"

"I'm terribly sorry to do this to you, John," Harry said, and he truly did sound sorry. "You're in the middle of a forest, aren't you. If you'd thought about it, you would know there was no way we would be having this conversation with you in the middle of a city. You may want to pull over if you haven't already. I have a story to tell you."

"Harry, what the hell are you doing?"

"Testing a theory!" he said brightly. "You're going to go to Chicago, and you're going to see your boys again, and oops! Here comes the wind. Right on schedule!"

The cedars surrounding him started swaying. He looked up, and saw a storm front moving along the strip of sky like mercury up a thermometer.

"Funny, how it barely kicked up a fuss when all you were doing was reading words on a page," Harry shouted over a background roar. "None of the letters I sent to Miss Moseley reached... but if I do things indirectly..."

The tree next to the truck started to crack. John gunned the engine, and for a heart-stopping second one of the wheels dug into the sand. Then the truck lurched free, and he serpentined back into control and sped back up the road and away from all the trees.

"Now don't hang up on me... going to survive this."

"Are you sure about that?" John said. The wind had picked up to where he could barely keep the truck on the road. He was going to have to drop the phone soon.

"Like I said, it's a theory... too late for me, but you've still... role to play, you'll see... Killing you... wreck the story."

Lightning like he had never seen arced through the sky.

"Stop this, Harry! There's no point!"

"Yes, there is!" Even through the static, Harry sounded jubilant. "There's one... not in the deposit box--and you just try to stop...bastards!"

Harry was laughing, and lightning flashed. It looked like a pair of giant wings.

"Tell you... You'll find... Elkins... vampires... all along..."

John had to drop the phone. The last thing he heard over the rising feedback was Harry, laughing madly.

John slammed the truck into park. He could no longer hold it on the road. The howling rose and rose, the lightning lashed down from a green sky and John hunched over, hands over his ears as the lightning pounded out a circle around him, as if showing him who was boss before delivering the final blow.

It was meant to make him feel small. Insignificant. Meaningless. It told him Harry's theory wasn't correct. It told him he could be replaced.

The sky had gone green. The rain came sideways and the wind followed the lightning in its circle, lifting the truck from the ground for a second. The truck landed with a spine-jarring thump. John tasted blood.

He looked up, and even though it came faster than he should have been able to see, he saw a giant hand made of lightning reaching down to crush him like a gnat.

He knew he was meant to feel afraid, to regret his transgression, but what he felt was... _annoyance?_

A sigil leapt to mind. It was simple. It was powerful.

John spit blood into his palm, and used it to scrawl the sign. He clapped his hands together just as the hand reached the truck.

The hand veered away, striking deeper into the forest. The crash of thunder sounded... confused?

John hit the gas. He took another fingerful of blood and scrawled a sigil on the dashboard as he peeled out of there as fast as he could.

The sky cleared to perfect blue as he sped towards New Bedford.

Thoughts that shouldn't have been in his mind jangled around. Everything was so close to making sense. It was like looking at an optical illusion and seeing only one of the two images that was in it, and trying to bend his mind to see the other one but it just wouldn't come clear.

What did that thing want with his boys? How did he know that sigil? What did it mean? Why did he recognize the lightning demon? What had happened to Harry? What was he trying to say about Daniel? Questions tumbled one after another, distracting him from the terror of what had just happened.

Most of all, what the hell kind of power was stacked against them? He had distracted it, driven it off... but for how long?

He knew he would always remember that hand reaching down from the sky. How was he supposed to beat something like that? That _and_ Azazel? Maybe he could turn them against each other, but no. They were already fighting, and his family had been caught in the crossfire.

When he got to New Bedford, he stopped at the bank to collect the contents of Harry's safe deposit box. The box contained a battered faux-leather briefcase. John did a quick check to make sure it contained manuscripts and not, say, a collection of minature liquor bottles, and checked himself into the nearest motel.

He lay down for a moment, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling and waiting for his heart to stop racing. He could still see that lightning hand, could feel the jump of his skin as it drew near.

 _Harry probably would have liked illustrating that_ , he thought.

He wondered if Harry had survived. He kind of doubted it, but he had no way of knowing just yet. A phone call or two could settle it, but it would also make it final.

If Harry had died, then at least it wasn't in vain, John told himself. He had the manuscripts. He had some degree of assurance that he would survive long enough to find something important, something to do with Daniel.

He moved his foot, nudging the briefcase he had dropped on the foot of the bed. He had no idea what was in those manuscripts, and now that he had them, he found he was more than a little afraid to find out what truths they would tell him.

 

 **1982**

It had been a close call, and they still didn't know the final outcome. John lay next to Mary, as near as he could get without touching. He rested his hand over hers where it lay protectively on her belly, crooking his wrist to keep from brushing any of the raw and bandaged areas. She was still shivering.

"Are you okay?" he asked, even though it was a stupid question. Her uninjured eye was still red and puffy with tears, while the other was almost purple and swollen nearly shut.

"Yeah," she rasped. He couldn't read minds, but he knew she was replaying that morning's events over and over again. It had been a simple fall, but the results had been anything but simple. It had only been because she insisted that she was home and not at a hospital. She'd said she'd feel safer at home, and who was John to say otherwise? "Where's Dean? Still at Mike and Katie's?"

"No, Mike brought him back while you were sleeping. He's back here and asleep. Or in his room, at least."

Mary closed her eyes. "Good. What did you tell him?"

"Just that you slipped and fell and you wanted to take a nap for a while and that it was very important he be quiet. I didn't say anything about... What he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?"

He squeezed Mary's hand gently and she started to shake again.

"I'm starting to feel like the universe just doesn't want me to have another baby," she said.

"Shhh... It's okay," he said, even though it wasn't. A few days ago, she'd had some cramping. The doctor said it was probably nothing, but gave her a list of other warning signs to keep an eye out for and moved her next exam up to Friday. Just in case.

Yesterday, there had been spotting. Again, the doctor said it was probably nothing, but he didn't sound sure and he said that Mary should come into the office tomorrow at noon instead of waiting another day until Friday. They would do an exam and run what tests they could. It was probably still be okay. Maybe.

A year ago, the doctor had said almost the exact same thing, but it wasn't okay in the end.

That morning, worry kept Mary from sitting still. She figured that moving would be less stressful than resting and that it wouldn't hurt to make a big pot of stew that she and John could have for easy suppers in case the doctor put her on full bedrest.

It was a good idea, in theory. But then she slipped on a wet spot on the kitchen floor and hit her head on the counter on the way down. That was bad enough, but it wasn't all. The cast iron pot of full of stew she had just pulled off the stove landed square on her stomach, knocking the wind out of her and scalding her badly. John had heard the shriek of pain and come running. He'd stopped in shock when he saw his wife on the floor clutching her belly, the stew all red and brown on and around her and he was back in the middle of the mortar bombardment that had wounded him and had spilled Don Sykes' guts all over the ground.

Seeing Mary like that...

 _The crump of the mortar hit like a physical blow, and the next moment he was on the ground, a sharp pain in his side. To one side, he saw what was left of Don. Above, Deacon was leaning over him, leaning on him, pressing hard right where it hurt most, yelling for a medic, where was the fucking medic..._

He felt like he was just standing there, lost in shock, but he heard himself yelling at Dean, ordering him to _stay upstairs_ , then calling Katie Guenther. He told her what happened and what he needed her to do, all short, sharp bites. He ignored her panicked plea for more details (was Mary all right, and what about the baby, oh no, not again, not like this...) all but ordering her to come get Dean and get him out of there.

Katie was there in less than five minutes. John took Mary straight to the hospital but could not for the life of him remember anything about the trip. Only sheer discipline got him through.

 _No such thing as an ex-Marine_ , he thought with as much gratitude as he could spare at the moment. It wasn't much, because he didn't know yet if there was anything to be grateful _for_. It felt like a sick joke that Thanksgiving was only a week away.

"I'm so scared, John."

The second-degree burns on her hand and stomach would heal with minimal scarring, if any. The doctor had also told them both multiple times that regardless of what they might have seen on TV or in the movies it was _highly_ unlikely that the fall or the burns would cause her to lose the baby. They should be far more concerned about the possible concussion.

The reassurance was too glib, though, and did nothing to erase all the fear and what-ifs that had set deep roots as they rushed to the emergency room. It also didn't answer the question if it was already too late by the time Mary had her fall.

There was nothing he could do but wait. Nothing he could do but be there and hope for the best.

"I am, too."

At the beginning of November, Mary had greeted him after a long day of work with a truly memorable kiss. Dean had already been put to bed, she said. A few hours later, as they lay together, she told him that she was finally pregnant. Three months, she said. She had wanted to be sure before she told him. Two years of trying and too many false and dashed hopes, and they were finally going to have another child.

He had only known about his second child for less than a month. Mary was barely starting to show.

Still, he would do anything for this child, and knowing that there was nothing he _could_ do right now and that it might even be too late scared him more than anything he'd seen in the war.

There were times when the thought of something happening to Dean struck him still with a terror he couldn't even comprehend.

Already, he knew he would be just as scared for this child as well.

 

 **1996**

A year after the demon, and the worry about Sam hadn't lessened one bit. Ten years, the demon had said, but demons lied.

In Flagstaff, Sam had disappeared for two weeks. Two whole weeks where John and Dean searched frantically and John tried to hold together shattered fragments of hope.

When John had come back from the unsuccessful werewolf hunt, Dean had stammered out something about Sam having gone missing. He was sorry, he was a wreck, he obviously hadn't slept in days, but none of that mattered.

"Don't even _speak_ to me right now," John hissed, before turning his back on his oldest son. It was either that or hit him.

From the way Dean withdrew into himself over the next several days, the usual motor-mouth cockiness fading into an old and familiar silence, John thought it would have been easier on the boy if he had struck him.

For two weeks, John had believed that the demon had come to finish whatever he had started back in eighty-three. He had believed that despite everything, despite all the sacrifices he had made and had demanded of his children, he failed.

In the end, it was as simple as a rebellious pre-teen deciding to run away from home.

John knew he owed some sort of apology to Sam, and to Dean as well, but it was easier to offer to let Dean drive the Impala from time to time than it was to apologize for turning his back.

Less easy, but still easier and far less dangerous than trying to explain anything, was finding a way to stay put in one town for a most of a semester. It was long enough for Sam to leave with a championship trophy his school team won at soccer. It didn't make up for nearly enough, but John hoped it at least meant _something_.

Most of the boys' school detritus had been cast aside or left behind over the years, but John would keep the trophy. The trophy itself was a piece of crap, but throwing it away would mean throwing away the look of disbelief and sheer joy on Sam's face when he realized that his father had actually been there to see that final game.

In many ways, the trophy was a reminder of what he was fighting _for_. More and more, he felt he was in danger of forgetting. It was easy to forget, as he got lost in studying the maps Bill had marked up. In the year since he'd found the maps, he had discovered errors, confirmed connections, and dug up new information.

The most critical piece of information was that Sam was not the only six-month-old who had lost his mother in a fire back in 1983.

The yellow-eyed demon was playing some sort of long-term game. Very long term, with moves being made decades or even longer apart. But what was the point of the game? What were the stakes?

And what about the demons that were opposing the yellow-eyed one? One had apparently possessed him, while another had cured him for god-knew-what reason. Had what happened to Mary Alice been a result of this demon squabble?

Bobby hadn't known anything about factions among demons, but he had said it was a fact that demons would happily turn on each other if it was in their interest.

"Just like people, in some ways," he'd added knowingly.

John thought of that warning now, as he sat with his new 'friend.'

John had known withing minutes of meeting Gordon Walker that the man would turn on him in a hot second if it served his purpose. The man was friendly enough, and he'd heard through the grapevine that Daniel trusted him completely. Still, there was something behind Gordon's jovially gruff 'we're all in this mess together' attitude that had John checking to make sure his gun was in easy reach.

After a quick and nasty pissing match over territory when they ran into each other, they had teamed up to get rid of the rawhead they were both tracking. It went well enough, and if it weren't for the itch to reach for his gun, John might have agreed more enthusiastically when Gordon said he wouldn't mind teaming up again.

"Heard from Elkins that you used to work with him, back when you first got into the life," Gordon said as they sat in John's motel room for a couple of post-hunt beers. It wasn't what John wanted to do, but he owed Gordon after the assist. "Good man, Elkins."

John nodded. Despite everything, he agreed with the assessment. "Yup. Had a bit of a falling out with him, though." He thought for a moment, trawling through old regrets. "Nothing can't be patched up, though. Eventually. Maybe."

"Something to do with your kids, is what Elkins told me," Gordon said, and John felt a surge of anger at the idea of Daniel telling Gordon just one side of that particular story. He also found himself increasingly angry at the idea that Daniel might see this man as a replacement for Matt.

"Yeah." There was a lot that could be said about that part of their last argument and who was right and who was wrong. Some of Elkins' objections had hit home. Others, well, John knew that his retorts about Elkins not trying to undo his own childhood damage had hit home equally as hard. The fact that Elkins might resent how he was brought up had no bearing on the fact that John had two boys to keep safe. "It was a sore point."

Gordon nodded sagely. "Elkins was wrong," he said.

"Pardon?"

"You raising your kids to know what's what, to know what kind of evil is out there? You did the right thing."

Just the fact that Gordon said that with obvious approval did more than any of Daniel's arguments to make John second-guess everything he had done over the past thirteen years.

"It's a hard life," Gordon said as if this pleased him. "A hard life, with hard choices. You wouldn't do them any favors if you coddled them."

"I dunno. There's times I wonder if they'd be safer if they were ignorant." Knowing what was out there hadn't kept Dean from nearly letting that shtriga from getting to Sam. Knowing what was out there hadn't kept Sam from trying to strike out on his own without so much as a knife on him. Knowing that yellow-eyed monster was out there didn't mean that John knew how to stop it.

"Those kids of yours, Winchester. They're close, right?" Gordon's smile glinted like a knife. "Close the way I was close to my little sister. You know, she was the best thing in my life."

It sounded more like a challenge than a memory.

"I heard about what happened to her," John said. Gordon was sprawled in his chair, holding a beer in one hand, but John was on the lookout for sudden moves.

"Did you, now? Did you hear the whole story? She wasn't killed, John, not by the vampire. She was turned." Spittle actually flew at the word, and he leaned forwards in his chair, posed as if to jump up. "They made her into one of them. Into a monster."

"You killed her." It wasn't self defense, John realized. Not like it was when Bobby had been forced to kill his wife. "You hunted her down."

The knife-smile flashed at him again. "Damn straight. I'm not bragging, and I'm sure as hell not asking for your approval. It is what it is, you know? You gotta do what you gotta do. If there's a monster, you kill it. End of sentence. Doesn't matter who or what it used to be."

"I know that." Funny, how he could agree fully with the man while still wanting to shut his mouth with a fist.

"Yeah, I bet you do. Way you took out that rawhead, I can see it. You can be stone-cold when you need to."

It was easy to be cold when he was frightened. He was frightened now. If John had started putting two and two together about kids whose mothers had died in nursery fires, other people could, too. In those early years, he hadn't been as careful as he was now. He had told too many people too much.

"I don't have much of a choice," he said softly.

"What about your kids, though? What would happen if one of your boys became something evil? Or if you did? You think you've taught them enough that they would be able to do the right thing?"

"What I think is that maybe we should change the subject."

Gordon's eyes hardened to match his smile. "Sure thing, friend. Consider it dropped."

They spent the next few minutes in idle gossip about people they both knew, and then John said he was tired and that Gordon should leave.

"I look forward to working with you again, friend. Maybe I'll meet your boys next time." Gordon flicked his hand in farewell as he left.

John sat quietly for a few minutes afterwards. He thought about calling Daniel, and asking him what the hell he was thinking, getting involved with someone like Gordon.

 _What would happen if one of your boys became something evil?_

If John believed in prayer, he would have prayed that Gordon never figured out John's fears for Sam. A crop, the yellow-eyed demon had said. And John now had less than ten years to figure out how to prevent the harvest.

He had never thought that other people might want to prevent the harvest as well, and might have their own thoughts on the best to do that.

Losing Mary had been horrible. It had easily been the worst thing to ever happen to him. A year ago, though, he'd had a bare taste of what it would be like to lose one of his children. He now knew things could be even worse.

Nothing would happen to his children, he vowed. Nothing. Not while he was still around to prevent it.


	8. Part Eight

**2006**

John clutched the edge of the bathroom counter and bent over the sink. For a full minute, he had to focus on just breathing. The nausea subsided, but as soon as it did, he saw Dean again, pale and dying in a hospital bed that was too damned far away. His phone rang, but he ignored it as always.

Part of him wanted to rip Dean up one side and down the other for such a god-damned amateur mistake. With that kind of voltage, you god-damned well checked for water!

Most of him wanted to get in the car and go to his son right then and there.

When he had started reading Edlund's manuscripts, he had been expecting answers. He hadn't been expecting to have his heart ripped out.

Dean would be okay, he told himself. His story wouldn't end here, would it? It couldn't, not with so much left for him to do. It wouldn't make sense.

But then again, maybe Edlund was simply recording what would happen, no matter how fucking unfair.

John took one more deep breath, then splashed cold water on his face and went back into the motel bedroom. He retrieved the sample chapter and synopsis of 'Faith' from the floor where he had dropped it.

He skipped to the end to confirm that Dean survived. It took him another ten minutes before he could make himself go back and read the whole thing. According to the synopsis, Sam would try to contact him, but John would not respond.

Well, fuck that. He would rewrite the damned story.

John checked the phone. Sam's number showed up, and there was a message.

 _Dad, it's me. Dean... Dean's been hurt. Bad. We were hunting a rawhead--_

John listened to enough of the message to confirm that Edlund had been right. Then he tried to call Sam.

The cell phone refused to pick up any kind of signal, even though it had had perfect reception just an hour ago.

Attempts to use the room phone resulted in a terse _this number is no longer in service_ message.

Fine. He would see just how far these bastards would take things to keep him from messing with their precious plans. He knew how to make them leave him alone, if he had to.

He packed up the manuscripts, got in his truck, and headed towards Nebraska. It would be a day and a half of straight driving, but that didn't matter a single damned bit.

He was just a little more than halfway through Pennsylvania when the phone rang. Joshua. He let it go to voice mail.

There was a long enough pause between the ring and the message beep that John listened to the message.

 _"Hey, John. This is Joshua. Haven't spoken to you in a while. Uh, Sam called. He told me Dean was hurt real bad, and that you weren't calling him back, and... he's desperate, John. The kind of desperate that means he's gonna do something stupid. I threw him the name of this faith healer out in Nebraska I've been meaning to check on, but I dunno. I hope him doing something a little stupid will keep him from doing something a lot stupid. I don't know why you're laying low, but you might want to put the brakes on Sam--the way he sounded, he might do something more extreme than going to a faith healer."_

The details Joshua gave him about Roy LaGrange matched up perfectly with what was in the synopsis.

In theory, that meant the synopsis was also right about Dean pulling through at the expense of another person's life.

John tried to make himself care about that, or about the people who lost their son so that Dean could live, but the only thing he could think of was that Dean was hurt and maybe dying, and John wasn't _there_.

He tried calling Sam again, but the phone battery died on him, and the charger wouldn't do jack.

He kept dring well into Ohio, and he only stopped because the gas gauge was all the way below the E line. When he was done and put the key back in the ignition, nothing happened.

Nothing happened several times in a row.

Goddamn alternator.

It took several hours to get hold of the replacement part, and on top of that, whatever credit card he used managed to flag the wrong kind of attention.

It took nearly a two full days of high-stakes hide-and-seek before the feds picked up the false lead he barely had time to plant. He was also able to get the phone recharged, only to find that Ellen had called him, wanting to know if he had gotten in touch with Harry, and if there was anything she could do. There wasn't. After what had happened to Harry, he didn't want her involved in this any more. When she called back the next morning, he didn't answer and she didn't leave a message.

The next day, just as he was crossing from Iowa into Nebraska, Sam left a terse message to let him know that Dean was okay.

 _"You know... just in case you wanted to know."_

There was the kind of pause that came before words that someone was going to regret. Sam was young enough and wounded enough to go ahead and say those words.

 _"Or in case you cared."_

Of course he cared. John listened to the message twice more, even though the words stung deep. He thought of how to explain, how to apologize, but it was far too late for either.

Ellen called again, leaving a message just as terse as Sam's.

 _John, it's Ellen. Again. Look, don't be stubborn. You know I can help you. Call me._

Not in a million years. She was in too deep as it was. Still, he kept the message as a reminder that the help was there if he absolutely needed it.

Meanwhile, he had some reading to catch up on. John checked into a comfortable looking motel outside of Omaha (idly wondering when the signs outside motels had started switching from advertising color TV to advertising free WiFi) and took a look at what Harry had left him.

He had only had a chance to skim through the collection before his attempted trip to Nebraska. After 'Faith' and 'Scarecrow,' there were no more sample chapters. All he had were synopses of varying length and detail. John wondered if the books had actually been written, or if the publisher had sent just enough to give poor Harry an idea of what he might want to paint for the cover.

It hadn't taken much effort to confirm Harry's fate.

Harry had been out on his back porch, right in the full face of the wind when that damaged cedar tree snapped and tore right through the screen and right through Harry. _South Coast Today_ had had a write up of the incident the morning after it happened. The grisly death of semi-local artist of some small repute had warranted a full paragraph of biography on the lower half of the front page. Of more interest to the reporter was the sudden, localized (and no doubt very personal) nor'easter that had pounded into Falmouth.

It seemed like the kind of sad, pointless death that most hunters eventually met, but John knew better even if no one else ever would.

Later, if there was a later, he would tell Ellen as much as he could. Some things he would keep a secret, of course, but Harry deserved to have what he had done remembered.

He also determined that he would finally tell Ellen what really happened to Bill, and not just because his reasons for not telling her looked increasingly stupid the more he thought about them.

In between reading, John poked around online and made some calls to some local bookstores to track down the books that had already been released, but everywhere John checked said getting them would be special order. Also, the first book in the series had already gone out of print. As for the manuscripts Harry had left him, they started with something called 'Bloody Mary.'

After a moment where it seemed like he had forgotten how to breathe, John picked up the manuscript and skimmed through it. It was only about a vengeful ghost. He put it down, not sure if he was relieved or disappointed.

The last full manuscript was something called 'Bugs.' John skimmed through it and quickly realized why these books weren't exactly best sellers.

It was just as well, probably. Having his family's business dragged out for all to see like this didn't sit at all well with him.

It also didn't sit well with him that a more careful reading of 'Bloody Mary' confirmed Sam was apparently having visionary dreams of some sort. Missouri had told him as much, but it wasn't all that much of a surprise. What little he had been able to find out about the Campbells suggested that minor psychic abilities cropped up from time to time in that family. By itself, it wasn't a huge worry. But the fact that the books were making a lot of _ooh_ and _aah_ over it was.

Also, none the messages he had received from the boys over the past several months had hinted at anything like that. It made him wonder what else the boys weren't telling him--or each other.

The books made him wonder about even more. The way Dean's eyes had bled when the Bloody Mary ghost had confronted him. The fact that they had actually met and exorcised a demon all the way back in fucking _December_. The only good news in all of this was that the only demon they had met who seemed to have any connection to Azazel was this Meg person.

He couldn't finish the synopsis for 'Asylum.' It went into too much detail and he just couldn't take it, even though he knew it had to end well. No, it had _already_ ended well, just as 'Faith' had.

Yes, the boys had taken some damage that would take some time to fix, but there was no fixing dead. Not without extreme and extremely stupid measures.

He also stopped reading partway through just the synopsis for 'Route 666,' but for entirely different reasons. He put the paper aside gingerly. It was only a synopsis, but it had gone into far more detail than a father should ever, ever know about his son.

It was getting late, but John kept reading, and the instant he picked up the synopsis for 'Nightmare,' he was glad he did.

Or maybe 'glad' was the wrong word. Not only had Sam and Dean had met one of the children who was represented by an X on John's maps, something more was going on with Sam's visions. He went over the synopsis over and over again, but nothing told him if what happened with Sam and with Max Miller was because of the demon, or was because of some trait the demon was looking for. It confirmed what he had known for some time--that the demon had a plan--and it gave him a better idea what the plan might be.

And his boys had said not one word about this. Or maybe they would call and tell him about it later. The events of 'Faith' had only just happened, after all.

He kept reading, only to find that the synopses ended with book sixteen, 'Shadow.' Harry had left his agent's post-it note on the cover sheet when he'd xeroxed it, and it said something about the kind of dark and gore Harry liked to paint, plus a hot, blonde, evil chick. The word 'hot' was underlined a few times for emphasis.

John wondered if the agent had ever seen any of Harry's seascapes.

Book sixteen was not the end, however. There was one more sheet of paper that had short teasers for two more books.

The first of these sounded like a straightforward hunt. A milk run, almost. It was the second one that grabbed his attention when it led off with a dramatic sentence about Sam and Dean facing down an old enemy that John had failed to kill once before.

He leaned forward, clutching the paper as if he were going to choke every last secret out of it. He told himself that this was it. It was the last book after all, so it had to be about the--

\--shtriga he had failed to kill back in eighty-nine?

That was it? The fucking _shtriga?_ Sending Dean back to kill a monster that had almost but not quite killed Sam? That was how it ended?

That couldn't be right. He refused to believe that was right.

He thought about the encounter with the lightning demon and Harry's last words to him. That _wasn't_ the last book.

Still, he made a note to check on Fitchburg, and see if there had been a sudden upswing of children becoming critically ill with no explanation.

It was book sixteen that intrigued him. It told him that he was going to get see his boys again. Soon.

He went to Chicago, even though part of him wanted to see if he could thwart whatever it was that was writing down what happened. That part didn't put up much of an argument before caving to the part that wanted to see his boys.

Finding them wasn't going to be easy, or so he'd thought. The violent deaths in locked rooms were easy enough to track down. Sam and Dean had tracked them down as well, and John nearly ran into them while they were gaining access to a murder scene.

Given that he wasn't supposed to meet them until the daevas had thrown 'Meg' demon out a window, he wondered what would happen if he had walked up to say 'howdy' instead of ducking back around the corner.

This once, he would wait for his cue. After that, once his boys were not directly involved, he would test Harry's theory.

His cue arrived in the form of a voice mail from Dean.

 _"We think we got a serious lead on the thing that killed Mom. So, uh, this warehouse. It's 1435 West Erie."_ There was a long pause. _"Dad, if you get this, get to Chicago as soon as you can."_

John snapped the phone shut. "Already on it," he whispered. West Erie was only a few blocks away.

He had plenty of time.

Fifteen minutes after he arrived at the warehouse, he heard a crash from overhead. Just as he expected, a blonde woman hit the ground right in front of him.

The synopsis had not described what that would _sound_ like. It would be a while before he forgot that.

He stepped over the body and went inside to see his boys.

Dean gave him a hug right off, desperate to make sure he was really there and really okay, but Sam stood back for a good long while as they rehashed what had just happened. He looked just as unsure as John felt.

Neither one of them had any idea what to say, but that was all right.

Seeing Sam again after all these years, and seeing Dean again after what felt like far more than just a handful of months--he had forgotten what it was like not to feel so damned afraid.

It was enough to make him feel like he had more than a ghost of a chance at this.

"It knows I'm close," he said when Sam asked about the demon. This much, it was safe for him to say. The next bit was maybe not so safe, but he owed it to Sam, especially now. "It knows I'm going to kill it. Not just exorcise it or send it back to Hell."

He paused long enough for them to catch the implications of what he had just said, and then he drove the point home:

"Actually _kill_ it."

He didn't need to have read the synopsis to know what would happen next.

"Let us come with you!" Sam begged. "We'll help!"

Dean was silent, but John could see the same plea echoed in his eyes.

"No, Sam. Not yet. Listen--try to understand. This demon is a scary son of a bitch." Even though he was telling them this much, he was never, ever going to tell them about Devil's Gate. Not even when this was all over. "I don't want you caught in the crossfire. I don't want you hurt."

Hearing the words out loud like that, it made him wonder when he had stopped thinking about what he _did_ want for Sam and for Dean.

"Dad, you don't have to worry about us," Sam said, with all the assurance of a young man who had only faced death a handful of times.

God, had he sounded like that at that age? A few years of military service and a tour of duty under his belt, and he had felt so worldly wise and capable of taking on _anything._

"Of course I do," John said, and he heard his own voice break. Sam had no idea, no idea at all... "I'm your father."

He could see how well _that_ went over.

The next words were as hard to say as any he had ever said in his life.

"Listen, Sammy, uh, last time we were together we had one hell of of fight."

"Yessir."

It took a moment before John could say anything to that. That simple, automatic answer showed him just how much it was too late to say.

"It's good to see you again," he said at last even though he wasn't sure he _could_ speak. "It's been a long time."

Sam nodded. "Too long." John could hear him fighting to keep his cool. John was fighting just as hard.

Then, they simply stopped fighting.

For the first time in a long time, John held his youngest son in his arms. For just a few seconds, everything was good. Everything was as it should be.

Of course, the fucking synopsis had left off the fact that the daevas would attack _them_.

 

 **Now**

Wait, wait, wait... So the angels _wanted_ to start the apocalypse?

 _It was destined_ , Gabriel said, and there was a lot behind those three words. Contempt, but for who he couldn't tell. Regret, certainly. Skepticism and gallows humor, almost definitely.

 _My brother Michael and his cronies simply wrote a script they liked that led up to their favorite version of the ending they had been promised, and then they forced everyone into lockstep to make it happen. Like a chump, I just sat back and let it happen. It was_ destiny, _right? I figured, just let it be over. It was going to suck, so we might as well just pull the bandaid off and be done with it. Raphael was the same way, except he just sort of went clinically depressed and kept on doing his job protecting the prophet who was foretelling all of this. That was before he went all Noriega on us--but that's later._

Prophet?

 _Yeah, the prophet Chuck. And no, I'm not making that up. You got an apocalypse, you got to have a prophet. And so this guy started churning out really bad books about your kids--_

Wait a minute... Are you talking about Carver Edlund?

 _You read them? Hideous stuff, but when it hit the wires--metaphorically speaking--I knew it was the real deal. So I introduced myself to them a few times._

There's a lot there you're not telling me, isn't there?

 _Just remember, there are two sides to every story!_ There was a note of desperation that sent a chill down John's spine, but Gabriel plowed on before John could demand an explanation. Anyhow, it was the apocalypse, end of the world ahoy, and your boys were of course being stubborn bastards--no insult to Mary meant--about fulfilling their destined roles. As far as I knew, they were just prolonging things, and that wasn't doing anyone any good.

What happened?

 _It was a real Hallmark moment, let me tell you. A heart-to-heart talk surrounded by, er, surrounding a cozy fire. It got me thinking. Dean has a way with words when he's motivated. Who knew? After I'd cooled my jets a bit, I figured I'd see what happened if I tried to write my own script, or even started ad-libbing. I also did a little digging around back on the old home turf. Incognito, of course._

What name did you pick? Clarence?

 _It's a classic! Bite me._

I knew it. What did you find?

 _Nothing good. Something was rotten in the state of Denmark, and it wasn't the pickled herring. I didn't realize until later was just how bad things were. It wasn't simply Michael's pride and Lucifer's pride going all irresistable force versus immovable object. It got petty. Some of the middle managers, with my big brother's blessing, had started accelerating the time table. No one had heard from God in over a thousand years, and there was this nice, big power vacuum waiting to be filled._

What? You're telling me there's really a God? And he just went missing?

 _Yes._

That one word, and all the sadness behind it, was the first thing that let him know just how truly, truly old Gabriel was.

 _A very, very long time ago. And no one knows why. Some of my brethren got impatient. And greedy._

Zadkiel gathers itself enough that John thinks he sees a human face in the swirl of power. It needs to say something to him.

 _Take it easy, little sister_ , Gabriel says. _I'll juice you up a bit. Not much though. Don't want to attract the attention of some of the losers out there_.

Like the ones who tried to attack me? John asks.

 _Yeah. Zachariah and Uriel. Real pieces of work, those two_.

Zadkiel shimmers and shrinks even though Gabriel warns her again her not to waste power. She looks familiar.

It was you, John says. You were at the Devil's Gate. Both times.

 _Yes,_ Zadkiel says, and her voice sounds human to John's senses. He wonders how much of Michelle Dinh is in there. _I knew something was happening, and my destined vessel was willing to let me use her to go see, and interfere if necessary. I could not let that kind of evil enter the world unfettered._

Michelle-Zadkiel bows her head, and she looks very much like that little girl from so very long ago.

 _The first time, I was too late. Azazel had opened the gate and taken power unto himself by the time I got there. Alone, I would not have been enough to stop him. The second time, I arrived just before they sacrificed the boy. There were three high-ranking demons. I called for help and my garrison's general arrived in person. He was not happy with me, and I thought at first it was because I had taken on a vessel without his permission. I was wrong._

Michelle's form shivers and shatters, and Zadkiel shrinks in on herself as if wing after wing after wing were folding into a tight little ball.

 _The rest of the story is that Zachariah pulled her aside for a quick 'strategy session' and shanked her_ , Gabriel said. _As far as he was concerned, hell on earth was a means to an end. Zee wasn't the first angel that happened to_.

His attention drifts down to Raguel.

 _Lesser angels have been killed and sent to Limbo if they can't be 're-educated.' But a seraph? Raguel, the embodiment of the Lord's just vengeance? When she showed up, I knew things were borked._

Raguel snarls in the deep. The story of what happened to Zadkiel has angered her.

 _For ages I stopped the slaughter in the holy places_ , she murmurs, speaking for the first time. The voice rails like a hurricane, but there is a strange sweetness amidst the wrath. _For centuries, I sought an answer. Why, why were the demons defiling what was ours? What were they seeking? I sought, I prevented, and then at last we learned and we were betrayed. My brother wanted the Fallen One to be released! He wanted our father's creation to be cast asunder!_

The rage in her voice twists Limbo itself, and the distant voices quavered in fear.

 _All that I had done. Centuries of vigilance. And for what?_

 _Nothing!_

The rage quiets. John knows he is lucky not to have been incinerated by it.

 _And now all is lost_. The voice is larger than an earthquake for all that it is silent and sad, and then the sweetness rises to the top of the fury. When Raguel speaks again she sounds almost human.

 _Everything I did for my boy, it was never enough, was it? George... my sweet George. I am so, so sorry. It wasn't enough._

John can only listen in stunned silence.

 _We couldn't stop them_ , two voices say at once. _Neither of us could stop them_.

 

 **2001**

"I couldn't stop him, Dad," Dean said. He wouldn't look John in the eye. It was like Flagstaff all over again, only this time Dean was furious and hurt instead of terrified.

"I didn't ask you to," John snapped. Then, a little too late: "It's not your fault."

John had been the one to tell Sam that if he left, not to bother coming back. He knew what family meant to Sam. John had never in a million years expected Sam to take him at his word.

But he did. John knew Sam's stubbornness was as great as his own. He had just never gambled that Sam's stubbornness might be even greater.

Instead of caving at the ultimatum, Sam had set his mouth into a stern line that reminded John far too much of Samuel and far too much of himself, then picked up his duffel bag and stormed off to the waiting cab.

Dean had frozen in shock for a moment before taking off after Sam. He was too late, of course.

As for John, he had just stood there like an idiot, wishing he could get a re-do on the last five minutes.

"He doesn't want anything to do with us," he said quietly after telling Dean it wasn't his fault. "If he wants to leave, just let him leave."

"How the hell could he just up and leave us like that?" Dean yelled, hands flailing furiously as he paced. "How can he not want anything to do with us? We're _family_ , damn it! I don't get it. What's wrong with him?"

Dean didn't wait for an answer, but instead stalked out to go do god-knew-what. He would be back, though. John had no doubt of that.

It wasn't them Sam was leaving, John thought, it was hunting. He could tell Dean that, but it wouldn't change a thing because leaving hunting meant leaving them.

John trudged up to the room he'd taken for his own in the rented house. College. After everything Sam had seen was out there, he was going to college as if he could just live a normal life without consequence.

It was a nice dream. He had even held that dream in trust for Sam at one time, but that was before November of eighty-three and before Devil's Gate. The college funds he'd barely had time to start had long since been turned into ammo.

How could he tell Sam that his mother had made a deal with a demon? Or that Sam himself may have been the payment?

 _What would happen if one of your boys became something evil?_

He honestly didn't know.

 

 **2006**

After leaving his boys in Chicago, John headed to Madison. It was a good staging ground for Fitchburg, and he could do some research on where the shtriga might be hiding without tipping his hand. Meanwhile, he would spend a few days recovering from his injuries while he went through Harry's papers a second time.

He hated sidelining himself like that, but one of the daevas had torn the hell out of his leg. The wound needed stitches, but after the credit card debacle in Ohio, John wasn't about make himself a sitting duck at the ER if he could help it. So, butterfly bandages, a splash of vodka, and a little do-it-yourself sewing it would have to be.

After looking at the wound the next morning, John ignored the manuscripts in favor of forging a prescription for a course of antibiotics.

He told himself had been through worse, and come out swinging at the other end.

Of course, when he had been through worse, he hadn't been in his fifties. He also hadn't been on the road or on the run for three days straight with only a few hours sleep.

By the next morning, it hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. Before long, he was the kind of cold that only came with a high fever.

Feds or not, the ER was sounding like a prudent option. Before he hauled his carcass out of bed, John sent Fitchburg's coordinates to Dean.

Just like the synopsis said he would. At least he had some assurance that Dean would know what to do with them.

As for what he was supposed to do next, he had no clue. Well, for the next ten hours or so, he would be kept under observation at Meriter Hospital.

He sat in the dark of his hospital room and thought between fits of dozing.

He kept thinking about what Dean had said just before they parted ways in Chicago. Sam had wanted them to stick together, and John had wanted so badly to say yes. He didn't, though, and not just because he had had a sneak peek at how this chapter of their story had ended.

In the end, Dean was the one to say what John was only thinking.

 _"We almost got Dad killed in there! Don't you understand? They're not going to stop. They're going to try again. They're going to use us to get to him."_

Even though Dean got it backwards, he still got it right. John could see it clear as day on Sam's face as he begged for them not to be split up again.

He had always known his sons were his greatest vulnerability. He had never thought that he would be one of theirs.

There was so much he wanted to tell them, but after what had happened on Point Road, even a little bit could be too much. In the end, he told them what he could.

 _"We are all going to have our part to play."_

Right now, his role consisted of lying in a hospital bed and trying not to concentrate on how the smell of cleaning fluid made his headache fifty times worse.

After this, he wasn't sure what his role _was_. If Harry was right, then there was something else he was being held in reserve for. What that was, or why Harry had kept some information back, he didn't know.

Harry said he had been testing a theory. John had assumed it was about his own supposed plot-related invulnerability, but he wasn't so sure.

He closed his eyes, and he could hear Harry's words as if the man was in the room with him.

 _"Right now, I'm just poking it with a stick, to see what happens."_

Harry had given him a briefcase full of documents, and nothing had happened. Harry had told him a few last details over the phone and that was enough to whip up the storm that had killed him.

When John played along with his assigned role, everything went according to script. When he tried to adjust the story more to his liking, he ended up being chased by the feds or being stuck in a hospital with an infected wound and what might be the beginning of pneumonia.

How the hell was he supposed to deal with something that not only saw what he was going to do next, but that made sure it would happen?

At least he had some degree of freedom to do what he wanted when he wasn't being pulled into Edlund's plot.

Again, as the meds and the fever kept pulling him towards sleep, it was hard to hang on to the fragile chain of thought he had pieced together back in Falmouth. How did it go again?

Ah, yes. Chickens and eggs.

Things didn't have to happen in the right order. Harry read about John doing something and then gave John what he needed to do that something. So did that mean the system could be gamed?

And whose system was it, anyway? He saw yellow eyes and a hand squeezing air as it crushed his heart. He saw a hand of lightning reaching for him. Sooty wings beat against rock while a blonde woman talked into a cup of blood.

How many sides were there in this? Or was it one huge side with too many players? And how was he supposed to stop them?

Mary held out a leather case that was filled with nothing but smudge.

 _"There. ____ and ____ both,"_ she said to someone he couldn't quite see. _"Just like you were promised."_

Familiar hands reached out to take the case of nothing.

Daniel reached down to help him to his feet. John's head pounded with fever, or perhaps it was pounding because a poltergeist had just beaned him with a piano bench.

The fever was making it harder it hard to keep his thoughts in order. When he tried to concentrate, random memories and imaginings cut in and pulled his mind in different directions.

 _"Think of the million random choices that you make, and yet how each and every one of them brings you closer to your destiny. Do you know why that is? Because it's not random. It's not chance. It's a plan that is playing itself out perfectly. Free will's an illusion..."_

As he drifted between waking and sleep, he heard the words in his own voice. They weren't his words, and as far as he was concerned, they were utter bullshit. For some reason, he pictured Dean, listening to the same words with the same kind of contempt John felt.

It felt like a memory, even though it was nothing that had never happened to him.

 _"Destiny and fate are still trying to reassert themselves. Things can still go very, very wrong. Or very right, depending on your point of view."_

He remembered the words, but not where he had heard them. What did they mean? Edlund's words weren't set in stone? He could turn the plot just as he had turned aside that giant hand?

 _"This is not about you."_

No. It was about his boys. It always had been. They were fighting the shtriga now, or they should be. Fighting a battle he had started but had not been able to finish...

He finally fell asleep. When he woke the next morning, the fever had broken, and it no longer hurt to breathe.

For the first time in a long time, he actually checked out of a hospital rather than just walking out at his own convenience.

"Given the state you were in when you got here, I'm surprised we're able to let you go," the doctor said as he signed off on the paperwork and wrote a completely unnecessary scrip for antibiotics.

John tried not to dwell on the fact that the doctor looked younger than Dean.

"I don't have time to be sick," he said, faking a good humor he didn't feel. "I've got too much to do, you know?"

Dean had left him a message that morning saying that he and Sam had a plan for dealing with the shtriga. John had picked it up at around the same time he started feeling human again.

Apparently, now that he was in no danger of interfering with Mr. Edlund's precious, precious plot, he free to do what he wanted until such time as he was needed.

If Harry was right, it would have something to do with Daniel and vampires.

John could barely remember what the two of them had argued about any more, but it had ended with not speaking for twenty years.

He supposed he could have called, but that didn't seem adequate. Daniel could blow him off if he called, but it would be harder for him to do that if John just showed up on his front step.

He had kept tabs on Daniel over the years, of course. Daniel was still in Manning, and had refused to leave even after Matt had been killed by that gang of vampires.

He wondered if he would have stayed in the Lawrence house if it hadn't burned. Would have been able to stop hunting after he had killed the demon? Maybe he would have ended up like Daniel, who was still looking for vampires years after the last known one had parted ways with its head.

All these years, and John had never really thought about that before. Now that he did think about it, he wasn't sure he liked the conclusions he came to.

He set off for Colorado. There was no one to spell him on the driving, and he still felt like crap, so he had to do it in two legs. He made it partway through Nebraska on the first, and the next day he arrived Manning just before dinnertime.

The town wasn't much different from what he remembered twenty years ago. There was a small movie theater and a couple of boutique-looking stores that weren't there before. All three were closed. It looked like someone had placed a losing bet on Manning being the new Telluride or something.

Roxy's Bar was still there, of course. The only difference he could see was that the glass door now had Visa and MasterCard stickers instead of the emphatic CASH ONLY that had been there twenty years prior. The bells on the door even sounded the same.

Daniel had been a regular here, and if John caught him here, that reduced the chance of having a gun pulled on him to encourage him to leave. If he didn't catch him here, he'd order a beer and see if the bartender knew anything.

The newspaper rack was right by the door, and as soon as he saw it, John forgot all about that beer.

 _ **LOCAL MAN KILLED IN HOME INVASION**  
DATELINE - A local man was killed Friday night in an apparent home invasion. According to an unidentified police source, Daniel Elkins, 63, of Manning, was found at his Canyon Road home..._

John about-faced and walked right back to the truck. He meant to drive straight off to Daniel's cabin but he sat numbly behind the wheel for a good long time.

It was hard to believe that Daniel was really dead. Hunters died all the time, but... There were some you just thought would be around forever.

Sort of like you thought your parents would be around forever. Or once you met the girl of your dreams it would be happily every after.

Reality never worked like that, though. He stared out the window of his truck at the abandoned stores for a while longer, thinking about what he would have said when he saw Daniel again. Now, it was too late. If only he had come straight out here rather than testing the water at Fitchburg... A tight spiral of anger began to uncoil, mixing with the numbness.

He took a deep breath and headed out to the nearby canyon that Daniel had called home. He had a feeling he would find evidence of vampires, and he couldn't tell if he was hoping to be proven right or not.

In the end, he didn't get a chance to examine the scene. An all-too-familiar car was parked right behind Elkins cabin, just in the spot he would have chosen if he hadn't known about an even better hiding place further down the hill.

He stayed long enough to make sure no one was following the boys. No one besides him, that was. Then, he trailed them back to the Manning post office, nodding his approval at the route Dean had chosen.

There were probably better ways of making his presence known than knocking on the Impala's window, but he had to admit--the boys' expressions were _priceless_.

He hoped that this time, they'd be able to stick together for a little while.

The pleasure of the reunion lasted only as long as it took for him to read the first paragraph of Daniel's last letter to him.

 _John,  
If you are reading this, I'm already dead. I don't know who's more stubborn between us, but, well, you know. It's a damn shame to have to say goodbye this way. But if you knew the truth of it, you'd probably have killed me yourself. You see, old friend, I've got the Colt. _

"That son of a bitch..."

There was more, but he was too angry to read any further. Too angry to be civil to his own boys. Too angry to do anything but bark out orders, and think about how the hell he could get the gun back.

All these years. All these wasted years. All those deaths that could be laid right at Elkins' feet. Mary. Bill. Jessica Moore. Mara Jenkins. Who else? How many more?

Any thought of grieving for Daniel had turned to something else. He hoped those vampires had ripped the shit out of him. He hoped...

He hoped that this was all finally coming to an end.

It was only later, when he had cooled down and had a few moments when he knew he would not be interrupted, that he read the rest of Daniel's letter and learned about the Colt's _real_ purpose.

He read the second page of the letter several times through, and the anger turned to something more like dread. He closed his eyes, said a quiet 'I'm sorry' to Daniel, and then he burned the letter.

 

 **Now**

Sometimes, the torture just consists of him sitting and waiting in Alastair's workroom. He has to be strapped upright, as he is no longer able to sit straight on his own.

They'll leave him like that for days, sometimes.

This time, he has been sitting propped up for three hours when Azazel wanders in. He's still wearing the janitor, and John wonders how much time has passed in the real world. The world where his sons are.

"You really love your boys, don'tcha, John? Love 'em enough to hand me this, anyway."

Azazel holds up the Colt.

"Do you even know what this really is?"

He does, but he says nothing. It is too hard to speak, slumped forward like he is against leather straps holding him to the chair. He can barely even breathe.

"It's a key to hell. Oh, some of us can come and go as we please, but this?" He holds the gun out low, turning it so that John can admire the way the light glints off the barrel. "This will turn a trickle into a _flood_."

Dean will figure out how to get the gun back. He will. He has to. Sam will _not_ turn into this thing's puppet.

He says nothing, because this taunting means the boys are still alive. If they are still alive, there is still hope.

"Thousands of demons will run loose, and it's all thanks to you, John."

Only, he now knows who was behind the books that told the story of Sam and Dean. He knows that the boys are being force-marched towards an ending that is anything but happily ever after.

When had he gotten it into his head that the angels were supposed to be the good guys?

"Aw, don't look so sad, John. Alastair will be along shortly. He'll cheer you up. Maybe he'll even let you play a little. I think it's about time, don't you?"

Whatever is going to happen, is going to happen soon. He needs to tell Gabriel, although he doesn't know what good this will do.

Things have already happened, things are happening, and they cannot stop them.

When John refuses to take the knife, Alastair stabs him with it. Then stabs him again. And again. Over and over and over until there is nothing left that could possibly grasp a knife.

Alastair rips open a hole in the wall and all but throws John back into Limbo.

Are you all right? Zadkiel asks, and she's so sincere about it, John almost laughs. Of course he isn't all right.

You look like shit, Gabriel says. It's flat and lacks the usual mocking tone.

You sound like shit, John retorts. I think whatever Azazel is going to do, he's doing soon.

 _Great_. Gabriel sounds completely uninterested.

You know how it ends, right? John asks. He knows his boys survive long enough to face Lucifer and Michael, but he still wants to know how this part of the tale ends.

 _He dies. The end,_ Gabriel snaps. _Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got bigger problems._

What about your plans? John asks. You asked me to let me know when it looked like Azazel was going to make his move.

Gabriel ignores him and starts to leave, but Zadkiel is in his way, shimmering in confusion. John asks Gabriel what the hell is going on.

 _Nice choice of words, Winchester. Now get the fuck out of my way, Zee, because I got a wet cleanup in aisle two. Anyway, there's no point in worrying about how Act One ends, because right now, it looks like Act Six is circling the drain._

 

 **1983**

"'...and they all lived happily ever after.' That's how all the best stories end, kid."

Even the ones you wrapped up in a hurry at the end because you couldn't remember how they were _supposed_ to go.

Mary rolled her eyes. "He probably can't hear a word you say."

"That's not what the book says," John said, pointing to the 'What to Expect' book on Mary's nightstand. It had been just as much of a help and a source of all kinds of paranoia (and not a few arguments) during the second pregnancy as it had in the first.

"Fine. He can hear, but he can't _understand_ ," she said fondly. "Oof. Did you feel that kick? I think we're going to have a linebacker, John. I keep telling you, we're having another boy."

Mary was as big at seven and a half months with this baby as she had been at full term with Dean.

"Ack! And there's another one. Not the kidneys, baby, stop aiming at the kidneys. Oh, I can tell this one will listen as well as his big brother."

"Well you were the one who said he couldn't understand us. And if _she's_ not listening, maybe _she's_ taking after her mother as well as her big brother."

Mary tried to give him a nasty look, but it turned into a laugh and a smile.

John ran his hand over her belly, again marveling at the warmth and firmness. Everything was okay. It was hard to believe, but it was true. Just yesterday, the doctor had said that Mary could be a little more active if she wanted. Even if she went into labor right now, the baby would very likely be okay. Premature, yes, but not drastically so.

The worst was over, but John was still scared. Part of it was an excited sort of scared, much like he'd felt before Dean was born. Most of it was a different kind of scared, though. It was the kind of scared you got when you started hydroplaning and there was traffic coming towards you and all you could do was keep your cool.

Maybe it was because he was the adult, now. When Dean was born, both his dad and Uncle Jack had been around with more advice than John could possibly use.

Now, it was just him and Mary, and he hoped that would be enough. Mary smiled at him in a way that told him she'd picked up on the brief surge of sadness, and his heart lightened because as long as he had her, he knew it _would_ be enough, no matter what.

It still felt like something that shouldn't have happened, falling in love with Mary and loving her _so much_. It felt less like something that had happened, and more like something out of the stupid bedtime story he'd just told his unborn child. Except, it was real, and now he was going to be responsible for not just one child, but two.

It should have felt like happily ever after, but all he could think about sometimes were all the ways it could go wrong, or all the things out there that could hurt his children.

Sometimes, he wished there was a way he could just wrap them all in up bubble wrap and protect them from the world.

Of course, Dean would probably think being wrapped in bubble wrap was fantastic, and would roll around on the floor until he had popped every last bubble. Then he would demand to do it again.

"Dean asked today if we could have a dog instead of another baby," Mary said after a little while.

John snorted with laughter. "Oh, that'll be an interesting take on the birds and the bees talk. Are you sure you're up for it?"

Mary whopped him across the chest with a pillow.

"He's already jealous of the baby. I think his eyes are getting even greener." Mary tried to make a joke of it, but he could tell she was worried. "I wish I knew what it was like to have a sibling. I have no idea what to expect."

"Me neither." This child would have no aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no grandparents. He--or she--would have a brother and a mother and a father. It didn't seem like _enough_ , but he told himself it would have to be.

Mary reached up and stroked his hair. From her sleepy smile, he could tell that talking and stories were just about over for the night. She wrapped things up with an ending that wasn't as nice as 'happily ever after,' but that had a lot more truth to it.

"We can only try our hardest and hope for the best."

Once again, and not for the last time, he wondered if it would be enough.

 

 **2002**

John stood at the edge of Sam's new life and wondered if everything he had done had been enough.

Maybe things would worked out for the best, despite all his fears. Maybe Sam would be okay.

It was easy to believe, in a place like this. Stanford's main quad was like something out of a fairy tale. Maybe in some other light, the stone porticos surrounding it would seem oppressive, but the late afternoon light hit the warm colored stone in a way that made him think of beech trees and blonde hair and one, last perfect day.

Out of nowhere, he was struck by a pang of homesickness that had nothing to do with the place he was standing just then.

Seeing Sam for the first time in nearly a year brought a similar ache. Sam might have been fifty yards away from him, but John knew his son at once.

In the quiet of his own mind, John noted that Sam must have grown at least an inch. He also told himself that Sam really needed a haircut. Those thoughts weren't important, though.

Deeper down, in a part that didn't put thoughts into words, John simply watched his son as he walked between classes and felt something very much like pain.

He stood in the shadow of one of the stone arches, watching his son pass through the sunlight of the quad. It would be easy to just walk out there and go right up to him.

A young woman accidentally jostled John's shoulder as she walked past. He was so distracted he mumbled an apology even though she had been the one who bumped into him.

"I'm so sorry! I'm trying to catch up with someone! Sorry!" she called back, turning not even long enough for him to see her face.

He did see the long golden hair streaming behind her like a comet's tail as she dashed across the sunlit courtyard.

It had been nearly twenty years, but Mary's absence could still cut him raw without warning.

"Sam! Sam! Wait up!" she called out.

Sam slowed to a stop and looked over towards the young woman and towards John, but he could only see one. Even from this distance, John could see the bright of Sam's smile. He knew what it meant.

John's second thought was that he should find out who this girl was, and maybe arrange for another accidental encounter--this one where she might cross a devil's trap unawares. One of Sam's closest school friends had once been possessed by a demon for an entire month before John figured it out.

His first thought was that he wished Mary could have been here to see this.

This was what they had wanted for their boys, so why wasn't he happier? He told himself it was because Sam was still in great danger, but he also knew that was a lie.

Maybe it was because something about this fairy-tale setting made it seem unreal, as if Sam was just playing an elaborate game of let's-pretend. That was closer to the mark, but still not it.

Maybe it was because there wasn't any place for him in this particular happily-ever-after. All he could do was lurk on the sidelines, in the shadows. He jammed his hands in his pockets and walked back to the car. He felt his phone vibrate, but he didn't bother to answer.

When he got back to the car, he checked the phone and saw he had a message.

 _John? This is Kate. Kate Milligan from Windom, Minnesota. I don't know if you remember me..._

He did. It took him a moment, but he did. That had been a nice time, but all it had done in the end was make him miss someone who wasn't there. It made him homesick for a home that no longer was.

 _...you could call me back. It's important but not urgent. There's someone here who wants to talk to you, but I need to talk to you first."_

There was mix of emotions in her voice that he couldn't even begin to sort out. He would get away from this place and call her back--maybe. Something gave him the idea that she would have been just as happy if he didn't call her back.

John didn't drive off right away. Sam was out there, so close and yet in a completely different world.

John sighed, then drove off, away from a life he no longer was any part of.

If he was the sort of person who prayed, he would have prayed that Sam would be safe and that the demon would stay far away from this fairy-tale place.

He would have prayed that in the end, he had truly done enough.

 

 **2006**

He lay on the hotel room bed like another sacrifice, like a piece of bait in a trap, waiting. His arms and legs were tied, but it was just a sham. The tightest restraints were all in his own head.

In the end, it was all for nothing. Nothing he had done had been enough. There was no more hope.

Jim was dead. Dead without knowing why.

Caleb was dead. John heard the gasp as his throat was slit, heard the splutter and bubble as he bled out.

They had been dragged into his boys' story only to die. Senseless sacrifices that meant nothing but pain. Nothing but loss.

John cowered deep within himself, pulling as far back as he could from the evil that filled him, that had stolen his body and his words.

This was nothing like the horror at Devil's Gate. That had been outside. This filled him, obliterated him, oozed into all the cracks of his soul, prying him apart.

He'd had no idea. None. None at all. Whatever had taken him over all these years ago, it had been nothing like this at all.

Azazel came to him in his own mind, wearing Bill's ruined face. Blood, bone, and brain covered Bill's shirt, and he pressed right up againt John. He pushed him even deeper into a sharp corner of his mind, crowding him and gloating at having a truly captive audience.

 _You don't even remember our first meeting, do you, Johnny? It looks like someone scrubbed that clean out of there._

One of the smudged spots in his memories was restored with a spike of pain as John heard and felt the sharp crack of his own neck, from long, long ago.

 _I thought you might like some sweet family memories of your dear departed never got to be your father-in-law. Hmm... I wonder who wiped that out of here. Have you been cheating on me, John?_

The roiling darkness in his mind bend into a sideways smile, taking his sanity with it as Azazel pushed deeper into his mind. He heard a scuffle from outside, heard Dean's voice.

 _Maybe you can build some sweet family memories with your own boys. Sam watching you snap Dean's neck oughtta be a nice Kodak moment._

He tried to yell, tried to warn his boys, but Azazel held his mouth shut and laughed.

John screamed and battered on the walls of his own mind as the ouside world went dark.

 _Don't worry, John. I'll make sure you're awake in time for the main event._

Azazel's darkness swirled around him in the parody of a caress. John could feel tendrils prying and poking, trying to get at the memories that even John could not access.

It hurt.

Was this what hell was like?

No. Hell was the look in Dean's eyes as the darkness faded, and John found himself in a cabin.

 _No!_ He hammered and hammered, but Azazel kept him pinned front and center. Pried his eyes open and made him watch. Made him see the shift in Dean's eyes as Dean figured out who was talking to him.

"Your dad?" Azazel made him say. "He's in here with me, trapped in his own meatsuit. He says hi, by the way. He's going to tear you apart. He's going to taste the iron in your blood."

 _And won't_ that _be a tasty treat, Johnny?_

He heard the demon spew bullshit about family. He heard himself explain that Mary had died because she was in the way. That Jess had died because she was in the way.

 _Now it's Dean's turn. He's expendable. Just like you are. Sam, though. Sam's important. He's going to lead the most glorious army you ever saw._

John howled. It didn't matter if he died, it didn't, it didn't, but he felt power twist through him and something wet and warm being crushed in his hand.

The words he was forced to say to his son were just as crushing.

Dean was pinned against the wall, afraid in a way John hadn't seen in years. Blood flecked his lips and oozed through his shirt.

"Dad! Don't you let it kill me!"

John's hand continued to squeeze.

Against the far wall, Sam struggled and shouted as Dean screamed in pain.

He remembered what this had felt like, even after ten years. Dean gasped in pain and gasped for breath as Azazel dragged him up the wall.

Blood now trickled from Dean's mouth.

"Dad... please..." He went limp.

Stop it. Stop it! Stop!

 _Hey, I know! Why don't I slit him open the way I did his mommy?_

Stop!

Sam cried out Dean's name in grief and fury.

STOP!

The word was a roar in his own head, but he heard it, too. A whisper from his own mouth. It was his own voice.

"stop it..."

For a second, he was free. It wasn't for long, and it didn't matter that Azazel rushed right back in, throwing him back hard against the walls of his own mind. It might not have been for long, but it was just long _enough._

Everything hurt but John was laughing.

Sam had the Colt.

It was over.

It was finally over.


	9. Part Nine

**Now**

John still wonders what would have happened if Sam had done what he was told and put a bullet through his chest.

Sometimes he wonders if there's no point in wondering because Carver Edlund already wrote it all down.

The next time he is on the rack, Alastair puts the knife in his hand, then folds his fingers around the hilt. He wraps his hand around John's, holding it closed with surprising gentleness. His current meatsuit looks like a younger, shorter version of Uncle Jack.

"There's no point in fighting any more," he says, and any illusion of gentleness is gone. "It will all be over soon."

John grips the knife tightly. He licks his lips and nods.

There is no point. Whatever plan Gabriel was boasting about looks like it has died before it could get started. He hasn't seen the archangel in years, and even though Zadkiel stays nearby, she has fallen as silent as Raguel.

There's nothing more that he can do. There's not a damned thing he can do for his sons, not any more. He can't even hope that this story will end with both of them alive.

He sees Dean shoot Sam then turn the gun on himself.

He sees a yellow-eyed Sam snap Dean's neck.

They've already lost. Even Gabriel has given up.

At least the knife gives him something he can do. He knows it's stupid, he knows it's the worst thing he can do, but what else is there?

His hand tightens around the leather-wrapped hilt. Alastair draws in a breath and slides his own hand away.

"There. Now was that so hard?"

Alastair actually helps John off the blood-stained table and keeps a grip on his shoulder until John is steady on his own feet.

It's been a long time since he has stood on his own.

"Not hard at all," John rasps. He looks around the workroom. The battered steel cabinets haven't been changed in nearly a century, but they look different from this angle.

From this angle, they look full of possibility.

Alastair claps his hands together like he's a car salesman who has just sealed the deal. "Let's get started."

John nods. It still feels strange to be allowed to move of his own volition. "Let's," he says.

He stabs Alastair in the gut.

Alastair snarls and backhands John into a cabinet. The knife goes spinning off into a corner. Before John can slide to the ground, Alastair is there, jamming a knee into John's groin. He grips the sides of John's face. The almost-familiar face is bright red, and spit sprays as he rants.

"You pathetic little maggot! You festering pustule!" Alastair presses his thumbs into the corners of John's eyes. "Did you think you were the first meat-sack to try a stunt like that?"

Any satisfaction John might have felt bursts as a thumb gouges into his eye.

"Do you want to feel what _she_ felt when she died? Do you, John?"

The pressure on his other eye lifts, and the crushing pain between his legs begins to recede. Instead of sliding down to the floor, John begins to slide _up_ as an invisible hand grips his throat and drags him towards the ceiling.

Azazel walks in. He says nothing, but leans against a doorframe that leads into what looks like the upstairs hall of the Lawrence house. There's a flicker of a smile as Alastair slowly cuts across John's belly.

"It wasn't fast," Alastair tells him, giving the knife a final, loving flick. "She was alive when she burned. She lived for a _long_ time."

A thin line of searing heat traces down John's spine, then bursts out to either side like wings unfurling.

Azazel continues to watch. He grins as the fire spreads and wraps itself around John.

"Did you ever wonder if she thought it was worth it, in the end?"

He hears his own skin and fat begin to sizzle and pop.

"All those years of happy bliss you two had. Were they really that happy?"

Every time the fire consumes him, he is remade. Over and over again. Even the eye that Alastair gouged out is re-created only to burst in the flames.

"You're a good man, John. A righteous man. You of all people should be able to be honest with yourself."

The flames devour him again, but before they do, John sees that Azazel has walked into the room.

"You've been here, what, nearly a hundred years. That's some kind of stubbornness."

The flames recede, then burst out again. There is movement in the hallway behind Azazel. Someone else has joined the party.

"You're a tough nut to crack, John," Azazel says. "But that shell of yours is starting to give way.

This time, when the flames die back again, John sees who is standing between his two torturers.

She looks just like she did before the fire. Her golden hair and white nightgown glow against the filth of the workroom.

"Mary..."

The fire takes him again. Mary simply stares up at him.

He knows that look.

He knows that everything he has clung to for more than a century has been nothing more than an illusion.

The illusion begins to shatter.

In truth, it had shattered a long, long time ago.

"Mary!"

She gives him one last look of tired contempt and walks out the door.

 

 **1983**

John had a hard time remembering the birth of his second child as a joyous event, but on Sam's one month birthday, the thing John remembered most was going home from the hospital exhausted to the bone yet wired with terror, feeling like he had been flayed down to the last nerve.

As bad as that was, he knew it was nothing compared to what Mary had gone through. When she had gone into labor with Dean, it took a couple of hours of 'weird twingey things' and an eventual consultation with 'What to Expect' and two girlfriends before she figured out what was happening.

This birth was heralded by a contraction hard enough to make Mary scream and clutch the back of a chair to keep from falling to her knees. Her labor was swift and violent, ending in a rush of doctors and John being hustled to the far end of the delivery room before he could think to react. He remembered this sort of quiet panic from the field hospital, the efficient chaos as a team of doctors fought in vain to save the dying man on the table next to his.

Their baby was not breathing when he was born. He was still, so still, and five seconds went by, then ten, then an eternity, and then at last he heard the thin, angry wail of his newborn son.

Yes, the story had a happy ending, but their baby boy had come far too close to capping off a harrowing nine months of waiting and near-disaster by dying ten years to the day after Mary's parents had died.

When Mary had gone into labor earlier that morning, the morning of May fucking second, she started sobbing, and not just because the contractions were ripping through her. All the way to the hospital she kept pleading for her baby to wait another day, just one more fucking day, please, please not today of all days...

The thing John remembered more than his own terror when his son came out still and blue was the look of blank resignation on Mary's face. It was almost as if she was relieved that the worst had finally happened and she could finally stop worrying and move on to grieving.

There was little of the joy he remembered when Dean was born, not even when the baby started bellowing loud enough to rattle the ceiling tiles. The expression on Mary's face when the doctor handed her child to her wasn't what John would have expected. If he hadn't known better, he would have said it was dread. Then, the tight line of her mouth relaxed, and she smiled down at her new son. He was alive, he was well, and he could yell even louder than Dean.

"We made it," John said, and he could hardly believe it was true. He was so tired he didn't know if he should be laughing or crying. He reached out and put a hand on his son's head, marveling at the fact that he was finally here. "We all made it."

Mary gave him a look, and he knew exactly what she was thinking:

 _Not all of us did._

Too many people weren't here to see this child. Dad. Uncle Jack. And, of course, Mary's parents. When she'd had Dean, there were times when she got weepy when she thought of how her girlfriends had had _their_ mothers around when they'd had their children, but it had sounded more wistful than anything. When they had taken her into the delivery room that morning, Mary started sobbing for her mother with a grief and terror so raw it scared him shitless.

He still saw traces of that fear and sadness behind her smile as she gazed down at her child.

"Why don't we name him after your father?" John blurted out before Mary could call the baby by the name they'd chosen for a boy months ago.

She was so taken aback he didn't know what to think at first. "Are you sure?" she asked, and the tremor in her voice said he'd done the right thing.

"Yeah. Besides, he doesn't really look like a 'Jack,' if you ask me."

He told himself they could use the name for their next child, but he knew better than to say so after everything they'd been through to get this one.

Mary blinked away tears and smiled without any grief or any fear as she bent down to kiss her son on his forehead.

"Well, I'm very pleased to finally meet you, Samuel Winchester," she said.

It was a perfect, golden moment, but it didn't last for long. Neither did Mary's smile.

By the time they went home, she had gone back to being silent and scared, and John had no idea what to do about it. He told himself it would pass, but weeks went by and it didn't.

It was was beginning to feel like she was keeping some big secret from him, something horrible, and she was expecting it to blow up in her face at any time.

"What the hell is going on, Mary? I've never seen you this jumpy." All he'd done was say good morning when he walked into the kitchen, and she'd nearly hit the ceiling.

"Don't sneak up on me like that," she said. She gave him a quick glare and went back to cleaning up the formula she'd spilled.

"I wasn't sneaking. I was walking into my kitchen and saying 'good morning' to my wife."

She sighed. "Why do you always get so defensive?"

"Why do you always get so touchy?" he retorted, even though he knew it probably the stupidest thing he could ask. He saw she was about to fire something back, and he held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Sorry, sorry. Forget I said that. Just tell me what's wrong, okay?"

"Nothing." She held his gaze for a long time, daring him to back down or to say something. He gave as good as he got, and at last she looked sharply to the side. Somehow, it still felt like he'd lost that particular battle. "It's not 'nothing,' but it's not your problem. I'm fine. I'll be fine."

"Mary..."

"Leave it alone, John."

"Fine." He poured himself a cup of coffee and went to sit out on the porch. If she wanted him to leave it alone, he'd leave it alone. What the hell was wrong with her? She kept jumping at shadows, and he had no idea what to do about it.

Hell, she wouldn't _let_ him do anything about it.

He waited until she left the kitchen before heading back in to drop off his cup. Then he left for work without saying goodbye.

They had had spats like that before--it was hard not to, since each of them came blessed with an abundance of stubbornness--but this one (and the one the day before, and the one the week before that) felt different, for all that it was mild. What that difference was, he couldn't say.

He wished he could talk to his dad about it, or Uncle Jack, but the fact that he couldn't anymore just added to how shitty it all was.

"It's not just that I don't know how to fix it," he told Mike during their lunch break. "It's that I'm having a harder time giving a damn, you know?"

"Ah, you two will work it out," Mike said. It was meant to be reassuring, but there was a hint of doubt. That wasn't much of a surprise; back when John and Mary got serious, Mike had tried to talk him out of it.

Lately, John had moments where he found himself wishing Mike had succeeded.

When he walked in the door at the end of the day, Mary hung up the phone lightning fast even though she'd been mid-sentence when he walked in.

"Who was that?"

"No one," she said too quickly. "Just... an old friend of my dad's. You're late."

"Sorry." He went to the fridge and got out a beer even though he had just had two with Mike. They had finished up early, but they'd ended up staying a half-hour past closing just shooting the shit, and they would have stayed longer except Mike said Katie would skin him alive if he wasn't home before six.

"'Sorry?' That's _it?_ Why didn't you call?"

"Because I didn't realize I was running that late. For God's sake, Mary, I'm only a half-hour late! Why are you making a federal case about it?"

"You were late," she said as if he'd gone simple. "I was worried."

"Well, I'm home." When was the last time they'd greeted each other with a kiss when he came home from work? He tried to remember, but the only time that came to mind was the day before Sam was born. "There's nothing to worry about."

Mary looked very much like she wanted to disagree with him. "I'll have dinner ready in an hour," she said flatly. She was shaking, literally shaking, and he had no idea why. "Go wash up."

"Okay..." John started to leave, but turned before walking out of the room. "Mary, what the hell is going on? You hung up the phone so fast when I walked in it was like it was on fire or something."

"Nothing is going on!" she said, so shrill he couldn't believe her "It was just an--it wasn't a pleasant conversation, all right? I was going to hang up anyway."

"Old friend of your father's?"

Mary nodded. Her lips were pressed together so tightly they were white. "I last spoke to him ten years ago," she whispered. "Ten years. I thought he might be able to tell me something about..."

She twisted her hands together so hard it was a wonder her fingers didn't break.

"Happier times?" he suggested, hoping that would lighten the mood.

"I'm happy now." She looked at him as if willing him to understand. "With my family."

"If you're happy, then why did you jump down my throat for being half an hour late getting home?" It was stupid, but he said it anyway. Mary's mood just didn't make any sense.

"Because anything can happen in half an hour!" she said, raising her voice enough that he took a step back. "Don't you get that? Don't you re-- Anyhow, I'm so _sorry_ for being worried when my husband comes home late when normally he calls when he's going to be only _five minutes_ late!"

John laughed, but it sounded wrong, even to him. "Are you kidding me? Now I'm _supposed_ to check in? Are you putting me on a time clock?" He took a breath and forced himself to calm down. He didn't know why, but lately things that would normally make him worried on Mary's behalf just ended up getting on his nerves. "Nothing happened, Mary. I didn't wind up dead in a ditch somewhere, okay? Everything's fine. The kids are fine. What the hell is wrong?"

"That's not the point, John!" she yelled. "That's not the point at all!" She stormed upstairs and she heard a door slam. Five minutes later, John thought about going to check on her, but in the end decided it wouldn't do him any good.

An hour or so later, when she still didn't come downstairs, John made a couple of tuna sandwiches. He and Dean had dinner in front of the TV. He told Dean it was a treat, and he thought that maybe Dean even believed him. Still, the boy was suspiciously compliant when bedtime came.

When he went up to bed, their door was closed in a clear signal that he was more than welcome to sleep on the living room couch.

When he went up the next morning to get dressed, he opened the door only to find no one in their bed. Mary had even made the bed already.

"What the hell?" he muttered. The couch was near the foot of the stairs, so he would have heard her come down--it wasn't like he had slept soundly.

She had probably gone to Sam's room to feed and change him, he thought groggily. He became un-groggy very quickly when he saw there was no sign of Mary _or_ Sam in the nursery.

He rushed to Dean's room, flinging open the door in a panic. Dean was there. So were Mary and Sam, all huddled up together on Dean's bed. Mary cracked an eye open but didn't say anything. John eased the door shut and went back to their room to get ready to work. He left before the three of them came downstairs.

This was just a rough patch, John told himself. Every couple he knew went through them, so it was about time he and Mary had their turn. Three days later, though, things didn't show any sign of smoothing out.

When he told Mike about it, Mike just rolled his eyes and said it was nice to know that the Winchesters weren't the damn Cleavers after all.

"You're about right on schedule for the seven-year-itch, you know? Plus, she just had a kid." There were times when Mike acted like his three years' seniority as a parent made him an expert.

"She wasn't like this after Dean," John pointed out.

Mike shrugged. "And Katie was a mess for months after Amy was born, but she didn't have a problem after Erin. My money's on the baby blues."

John winced. Mike was probably right. Things had been so touch and go throughout the pregnancy, and it was like all the worry Mary had been trying to hold at bay for all those months came out along with Sam.

That morning, a flickering light over the kitchen table had her jumping back and shrieking like she was about to be electrocuted.

John had laughed, because it _was_ funny, like something out of a cartoon. But Mary had just looked at him as if he'd walked up and slapped her, and then she just sort of folded into her chair, head in her hands so that he couldn't see if she was crying or not.

"Go to work, John," she'd said when he tried to apologize for laughing. "I'm tired. That's all. I'm not mad at you. Just... go away. Please."

He had left as ordered, slamming the door behind him.

"Anyhow, it happens. Katie and me, we've had our moments, but it all worked out okay," Mike said, shrugging and ducking back under the hood of Tom Eldredge's Ford pickup. "You'll get it figured out."

Still, it was fucking exhausting when every conversation managed to turn into a misunderstanding no matter what he did. When Mary had told him to 'go away,' for a second it had sounded like sweet escape.

Maybe one day, he would get in the Impala--just him and the boys--and he'd keep on driving and never stop. He could just write off the Mary Campbell chapter of his life as a mistake and make a fresh start. It was tempting, sorely tempting, but John hated to lose at anything.

Things didn't get any better the next day, or the next, but John told himself it would probably just take time.

Two weeks passed, then a third, and Mary kept going around like she expected one of them to set off a tripwire, and John kept finding reasons to put in more hours at work.

On Sam's one-month birthday, John came home and found Mary pouring out a container of salt by the front steps.

"It's because of the slugs, John!" she said when he confronted her. She threw the empty cylinder at him, hitting him in the chest hard enough to get an _oof_. "Don't you dare bark at me like I'm one of your stupid Marines, and do not use the f-word where Dean can hear you! What is _wrong_ with you?"

John stalked away without another word. That had sounded so much like the Mary from middle school, the one who openly despised him, that he didn't trust himself not to say something else childishly cruel. He had already said too much.

" _What the fuck do you think you're doing, Mary_ Alice _?_ "

It was the sort of thing he would have said when he was a kid, and it had come out of his mouth too easily just then.

What the hell was wrong with him? What was wrong with them?

That night over dinner, when Mary bent her head to say something to Dean, the lamplight flashed gold in her hair in a way that just a few months ago would have made his breath catch in his throat and his mind go blank with just how much he loved her.

This time, though, it was just lamplight and it was just hair. Whatever magic had been there was gone. He didn't remember any kind of fading away leading up to that point, just the feeling that someone had flipped a switch when he wasn't looking and things had changed.

He didn't feel horror or dismay, just a sort of numb weariness when he realized he wasn't sure he loved her. In fact, it was hard to believe he ever had. More and more, the way he and Mary had fallen in love (so hard, so sudden) was beginning to sound like just another one of Uncle Jack's stories.

It felt like something that had happened to someone else if it had ever happened at all.

When Mary realized he was staring at her, she looked up and met his eyes. She didn't say anything, but John knew she was wondering the same thing he was:

 _Who are you? Why are you even_ here _?_

 _Why am I?_

 

 **Now**

He no longer knows what is real and what is false.

The visions become less extreme. More real. Harder to fight against. He is so played out that all Azazel needs to do is give his mind a little nudge, and his own fears and memories roll along all on their own.

There are the times when Sam is never born. He dies in the womb and takes Mary with him.

Mary's scream wakes him and he runs upstairs, only she's not on the ceiling, she's kneeling by Sammy's crib and keening over her dead son. After that, John can only remind her of her son's death, and she takes Dean and walks out on them, never to come back.

He goes upstairs because something is wrong, and there's no Sam and no Mary. When he goes to Dean's room, Dean is gone. All that is left is a note on the kitchen table: Mary has left and she is never coming back. John is not to try to find her.

She never loved him. That is the one truth behind all the illusions, behind all the false memories.

It was never real.

It was only a means to an end. His boys were important. He wasn't. Neither was she.

Whatever they had was a sham.

He was a pawn, and so was she.

This was never his story. Never their story.

When he returns to Limbo, nothing happens. Raguel circles below him, and Zadkiel drifts morosely alongside him. None of them has anything to say to the others.

They hang there for a year with no interruptions. Alastair doesn't pull him in from interrogation. Raguel doesn't get any challengers.

By then, John has given up trying to talk to her. Since that one time when she spoke with two different voices, she has remained silent.

John almost starts to wish that Alastair would put him on the rack again. That would be better than replaying everything he ever believed about Mary and seeing it for the lie that it is.

Then, without warning, Gabriel returns.

 _Hi, guys. Miss me?_

Raguel lunges at him, snarling. Gabriel skitters back to a safe distance

I'll... take that as a yes?

Zadkiel swoops at him, and in her nonsense, John thinks he can hear the kind of demand he used to get from Sam on occasion.

 _Where_ were _you?_

It used to anger him, when he would hear it upon coming back to his motel room at two in the morning, desperate for painkillers and a shirt that wasn't sticky with his own blood.

 _"I thought you were_ never _coming back!"_

It always sounded like an accusation. What he had never heard was the fear at being left alone.

He wonders how much of the fear he hears now is Zadkiel, and how much is Michelle. He wonders if there is any difference at this point.

 _I had work to do_ , Gabriel says with a shortness that sounds familiar. John used to say much the same thing once upon a time.

There's a sense of the archangel taking a deep breath, and then he is back to his old self again. Mostly. He seems much smaller, now.

 _Anyhow, how's tricks? I'm guessing you haven't taken the knife._

He tells Gabriel he hasn't. It's not quite a lie, but he's being as truthful with Gabriel as Gabriel has been with him--only to a point.

 _Good. Keep it that way. I'm guessing the pressure's on._

Yes.

Even though he can't see it, he can tell that Gabriel blinks in surprise.

 _That bad, huh?_

It's all John can do not to laugh. That bad? He sees his children's deaths over and over. One of these days, he'll take the knife for real. It's inevitable.

 _Don't! Not now!_ There's no pretense at coolness or humor. _You can't! That is the one thing you can_ not _do!_

But why? Why shouldn't he give in? None of this means anything anyway.

 _Don't be a fucking idiot, John._ Gabriel comes in too close, too fast, and Raguel surges up. There's a press of power from Gabriel and Raguel stops cold. _Stop it, Rags. I mean it._

For the first time, John feels something like fear from Raguel.

 _Don't. Give. In. You'll ruin everything_ , Gabriel says.

What does it matter? Everything is already ruined.

A slit opens in the red, and the angels draw back out of sight as Alastair pulls him back into the workroom.

Mary watches impassively as Alastair slices away his flesh bit by bit. At the end, she is the one who holds out the knife to him, hilt first. His eye is drawn to the fall of her nightgown, how the neckline drapes just so, marking the perfect spot for him to plunge the blade...

He looks away and doesn't take the knife.

Was any of what they had real?

It's so hard to remember.

Mary never loved him.

When did it all go so wrong?

How much of it was real, he demands when he returns to Limbo.

 _How much of what was real?_ Gabriel asks impatiently. _Do you think Azazel is any closer on moving with his plans?_

I don't know! Now tell me. Mary... was any of it real?

 _Why are you asking_ me _?_

John doesn't know. He doesn't even know what answer he wants Gabriel to give him.

 _Okay... Why did you even doubt it in the first place?_ Gabriel asks with a pointedness that seems very strange.

Again, John doesn't know. Azazel lies, but so many of his lies are rooted in the truth.

 _Dig deep. Not just to this whole doubt thing. You'd have that anyway. Doubt is what relationships are about, and I know, because I've had a few hundred in my lifetime. Look deep into your heart._

Gabriel being that cheesy is surprising enough to knock John out of his funk.

Gabriel sighs. _I meant_ literally, _dumbass. Look deep into your heart. There should be a scar or something there._

Okay....

John looks.

At first glance, there is plenty of physical damage, and he realizes that he would have been gone in a year or two even without Azazel.

 _Go deeper._

He looks deeper.

There is a scar, just as Gabriel had said. A literal scar that persists despite the number of times his body has been torn to bits.

 _Closer._

He looks closer.

It's a symbol in an language he thinks he should know how to read. Even though it persists, something about it reminds him of a filament in a burnt out bulb.

What does it say? he asks Gabriel.

 _It's Enochian, so it's pretty long and complicated. Rough translation, "John and Mary, sitting in a tree, K I S S I N G."_

John doesn't believe him.

 _I said it was a rough translation. Basically, you and Mary were played and played good. Your bloodlines needed to come together, and my brother was even willing to fuck around with death to make that happen. Cupid's arrow ain't just a metaphor, bucko._

A fragment of story flickers through his memory. A snowy night. A car the color of sweet cream. Two people who never would have met under ordinary circumstances locking eyes and falling in love.

 _You think that pisses you off? Just wait, there's more..._

He scoots up real close to John, and he tells Raguel to mind her own business if she hears screaming.

 _Honestly, I have no idea why she's taken to you like this. Normally it's all smite, smite, smite with that one. Hey, lookit me! I'm the vengeance of the Lord!_

He feels something press against his forehead. It feels like a hand and it feels like a supernova.

What are you doing?

 _Giving a loose tooth a little nudge. Hold on, this'll only hurt a lot._

 **1983**

It wasn't that they fought _all_ the time. That wasn't the problem. John wasn't entirely sure what the problem was, and he got the feeling that Mary didn't, either.

June went by, and then July, and the jumpiness that had made Mary seem like a different person began to subside.

He wasn't sure what had been eating at her, or why it had stopped, but it mattered less than it would have just a few months ago.

"I know I've been kind of a wreck lately," Mary said at dinner one Sunday out of the blue, just after pointing out that Sam would be three months old on Tuesday. "But I think everything'll be okay, now."

"That's good," John said. Why bother saying any more? Mary wasn't about to offer up any explanation as to why she'd been on a knife's edge for so long or what happened to change it--if anything had changed. When Mary had made that declaration, it didn't sound like she was trying to convince him.

He knew better than to dig any deeper, because those conversations never ended well.

"Nice to know you care," she said with a bright sarcasm he was coming to hate. They ate the rest of their dinner in strained silence, with Dean looking back and forth at each of them fearfully as if wondering when the yelling would start.

They both made a point of being perfectly civil throughout the rest of the meal. After all, the didn't fight _all_ the time.

When they did fight, it always seemed to be over stupid things.

Sometimes they fought because when John wanted to put his feet up for just ten stinking minutes after a long day at work, he didn't appreciate being made to feel like a layabout. Mary said _she_ didn't appreciate him acting as if looking after a newborn and a hyperactive toddler _and_ keeping the house clean _and_ having dinner on the table for her poor, overworked husband didn't count as work.

John said he never said that. Mary said it wasn't about what he said or didn't say. It was about what he did or didn't _do_. Didn't he ever think that _she_ might like ten minutes of peace after her long day?

If Mary wanted help with the boys, he said, then maybe she should stop telling him he was doing it wrong when he tried. She told him that if he wanted to help, maybe he should start listening to her when she told him what kind of help he needed.

They fought because Dean had figured out that if one parent said no, the other might say yes.

They fought over what music to listen to in the car, what to have for dinner, or what to watch on TV.

Finally, one argument ended with him slamming the door and walking until he'd reached Mike's house. He was so out of it he was lucky he hadn't stepped in front of a bus. By the time he reached Mike's house, he couldn't even remember why they'd been fighting.

In the end, it didn't really matter, did it?

Mike greeted him with an ice-cold beer. "Mary called thinking maybe you'd be over here. Things are bad, huh?"

John took the beer gratefully. He would probably take the second one just as gratefully. "Things are bad."

Mike shook his head. "Katie'll let Mary know you're here."

"That's fine." It wasn't, though. Not fine at all.

John didn't think Mary would be calling to tell him to come back. He was feeling more than a little superfluous to needs at the moment.

Still, he called the next day. He had to think things over, he said and he was just calling to let her know that. She reminded him that he had two boys who needed their father, and he said that he didn't need reminding of that, thank you very much.

She waited for him to say something else, but what he wanted to say he couldn't put into words.

She hung up on him.

That night, John stared up at the Guenthers' rec-room ceiling and wondered why it was he couldn't just say that he loved his boys more than anything else in this world, loved them so much it felt more like fear than love. He wanted to say he was afraid he'd never see them again, that she'd take them away, that something would happen...

Dean, with eyes so much like Mary's, and a wicked, wicked grin. Sam, who even though he couldn't talk yet, had a look about him like he already knew so much more than John could ever hope to know.

John could already see how Dean was like him in some ways and maddeningly unlike him in others, and at times he felt as if looking into Sam's still-unfocused eyes was like looking into a mirror.

He'd had them such a small part of his life that losing them terrified him more than mortars, more than tripwires, more than the dreams that had him waking in a cold sweat because someone had told him he was supposed to be dead.

The thought never quite came together, but he wondered if maybe this was _what_ Mary had been feeling the past few months, even if he didn't understand the _why_.

John called her as early as he dared the next morning, but that call didn't go much better than the first one. Mary kept waiting for him to say the right thing, and John kept waiting for some hint as to what that might be. Or maybe he was waiting for her to say it was over.

When he hung up, he had a sudden memory of how resigned she had looked when Sam come out so still and so blue.

They had had their share of fights over the years, but they always found it easy to apologize, easy to see what needed to be put right. The _work_ needed to put things right wasn't always easy, but there was never any question that it was worth it. Not like now.

He had been so in love with her. She had been so in love with him. What had happened? Where had it gone?

That night, John stayed at work until six. He got in his car at five thirty, but he didn't leave the parking lot. He just sat there in the Impala, twisting his wedding ring around and around his finger, studying it as if he'd never seen it before. The love he had once felt for Mary Campbell now seemed like a madness. Like a storm. Like an all-consuming fire. Like something so big he shouldn't even try to fight it.

But then it was gone. Just like that. Sam was born, the clock struck twelve, and the spell was broken. The fire went out.

So what was left? Or had there even been anything there to begin with?

He twisted his ring and he looked through his memories, and so little of what he saw seemed real. Even that first, nervous date seemed like a strange dream. Now, like a vivid dream in the clear light of morning, it seemed completely nonsensical. Illogical.

John stared through the windshield and looked at every memory of Mary five, six, a hundred times.

Everything looked so different in the absence of that burning, burning light. They looked different enough that it took him much longer than it should have to see that some of the things he saw were _real_.

That strange little girl, coming up to to talk to him when no one else would. _"I'm sorry about your mom"_ , she said soft as a whisper. The leaves shone fire-gold behind her and he truly saw them and her for the first time ever. _"I really am."_

At the time, he wished she hadn't run off right after.

Now, he wondered what might have happened if he'd gone after her.

 _"Give her five minutes, son, then go looking."_

He looked through his memories some more. It turned out that maybe she hadn't gone all that far after all.

He had seen her again, mussy and golden in her prom dress, looking up at his window and laughing merrily at his surprise. She had known he had look to see where she had gone, and she had waited for him to look before turning and running home.

She kept showing up over and over again, in little moments. A wry smile in the morning when both were too tired and undercaffeinated to exchange words. The grateful look when he got up in the middle of the night to check on Dean or Sam. Leaving him alone after his father had died, but always tapping on the door five minutes after he'd sequestered himself to let him know where she would be if he needed anything. Little things. Lots of things.

He had seen her again in the exhaustion after Sam's birth, in the look she had given him when he offered the gift of a name that had the power to take away the sting of the past.

Once he saw that, he began to see that not everything over the past few months had been bad. Worse than normal, but not bad.

Maybe he had been too blinded by the after-image of illusory flames that had flared up and burned out so suddenly that he just couldn't see the warm, steady glow of a well-banked fire for what it was.

This fire comforted, but it didn't blind and consume. It was hearth and home and the touch of a familiar hand. It was laughing at a joke that you knew a certain someone else would like even if you thought it was corny. It was a passion that felt familiar and a friendship that would always feel surprising. It was loving someone and liking someone and knowing that whatever happened, you would have each other's back.

He knew this, and the fact that he had seriously thought about throwing it all away as worthless scared him to death.

What he didn't know was what Mary felt, and getting out of the car and walking back into the garage and making that call was one of the most frightening things he had done in his entire life.

"Are you done thinking?" she said sharply when he said 'Hi, Mary.' There wasn't even a hello.

"Yes." He tried hard not to snap back, no matter how scared he was. Yes, she could get on his last nerve. She could bring out the worst in him at times, and he in her. That might not ever change. But there was so much more besides that, even though he had only seen the bad in the past few months. Now he wanted a chance to get to know all the good he might have missed over the past ten years because he was so blinded by other things. "I am."

"And?" It was a challenge. It was a plea.

John had no idea what to say, let alone how to say it.

"I want to come home," he said.

"Then--"

"Wait," he said, cutting off what he knew would be a sharp 'then just come home.' "Do _you_ want _me_ to come home. None of this stuff about the boys needing their dad, because you know I would never, _ever_ abandon them."

His voice rose even though he didn't mean it to.

"I know that, John," she said in a quiet, defeated voice that broke his heart.

He had never thought that having his heart broken could come as such a relief. He thought again about how quiet and scared she had been, and he wished he could go back and fix it.

"Things, uh, things have been kinda rough, I know. We haven't been that nice to each other recently." There might be more fights, there might be blame, but that didn't matter. He hoped he could say what he needed to say and that she would be able to hear it.

"No, we haven't," she agreed, and he almost told her that none of this was her fault, that it was all his, because she sounded so damned miserable. It would have been false, though, as false as the flames that no longer seemed real.

"So let me try asking that another way. This has nothing to do with the boys. This is about you, and about me. Us. Do _you_ want _me_ to come home?"

Her silence was long enough to make him worry.

"I think so?" she said with an uncertainty that he rarely heard from her. "I've been thinking about that a lot, the past few days."

"So have I." He had no idea how this conversation would end, and he braced himself for the words that could break him. "I think we can make this work, Mary. I really do. I _want_ to make it work."

"Yes." It was a sigh, a prayer. It told him that she had been bracing as hard as he had, maybe even harder. "So do I. Making it work's going to be _work_ , though."

The fact that he instinctively bristled at an accusation she didn't make just confirmed her statement. "For both of us," he said, hoping like hell that didn't come across as defensive or accusatory. He took a breath and paused long enough so he could put words around what he was thinking. "But if it's the both of us, together, though, we can make it work. Hell, we can do _anything_."

To his surprise, he heard a snort of laughter on the other end of the line. "Sorry, I shouldn't laugh, but that sounds almost like you're doing some cheesy rewrite of our wedding vows."

"Maybe I am," he said, because it was kind of true.

"Well, our anniversary _is_ in two weeks. It'll be nice to really celebrate." There was real laughter, now, and a lightness that had been missing since she went into labor on the tenth anniversary of her parents' deaths. "Maybe I don't have to worry any more."

She sounded a little doubtful, though.

"Worry about what?"

"Nothing," she said, sharp with that old defensiveness, but she was quick to apologize. "Just... a lot of old stuff got dredged up the past few months and, well, maybe I don't have to worry quite so much any more. John..."

He heard a sound on the other end of the line that made him think maybe she was trying not to cry. For the first time in what felt like a long time he wished he could be at her side. He might not be able to fix what was wrong, but at least he could be _there_.

"It's okay, Mary." He meant it. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

There was another long silence. "Thank you," she whispered. "Maybe someday, but... I'm sorry about everything, and yes, I know it's not all my fault, but a lot of it is, and... I can't really explain it, but I was so worried about my family that I almost wrecked it."

"But you didn't," he pointed out.

"So you're coming home? Tonight?"

While she hadn't actually given an answer to his original question, he knew what the answer was all the same. The eagerness in her voice had him smiling broader than he had in a long time.

"Yup. Why don't I pick up something for dinner on the way home?"

 _On the way home_. That sounded good.

"Not pizza. _Please_ not pizza," she groaned and it was his turn to laugh because he knew everything was going to be okay.

No, that magical first love that had lasted so long might have faded, but he had a feeling something better had been left in its wake.

It had been there for a while, for all that it still felt new. John didn't know all that much about what it would look like tomorrow, a year from now, or fifty years from now, but he knew it was real.

 

 **2006**

Reality was a sharp impact and a flare of pain. The world turned upside down.

"Hang on!" Deacon yelled. He pressed down on John's wound.

John tried to tell him to stop but he couldn't speak.

Deacon pressed down harder. "Just a little longer, so don't you dare crap out on me now, Marine!"

He heard the thrum of choppers overhead. Deacon's face began to gray out along with everything else.

"Just a little longer!" Deacon's voice grew shrill even as it faded into the gray. "God damn it, John, don't you fucking do this to me!"

John barely felt the whip and sting of dust as the choppers drew near earth.

This had happened. So had many other things. He remembered an impact, but nothing else. How had he gotten here? Mortar, right? Wait, no... was it a mine?

It didn't matter. Either way, it was over.

He heard footsteps over the _whupwhupwhup_ of slowing chopper blades.

"Significant passenger side intrusion! Unresponsive. BP is one-eighty over sixty, heartrate ninety-five, ninety-five!" Someone was at his side, and he felt a pressure around his arm and on his throat.

It wasn't Deacon. Where was Deacon?

Another voice cut through the chaos. "Tell me if they're okay!"

Sam... That was Sam. This wasn't Vietnam, so why were there helicopters? Where was Dean?

Sam kept shouting. "Are they even alive?"

John's arm went cold with pain as he was jostled and lifted. He was aware of one paramedic at his head, another at his feet as they ferried him towards the chopper. Someone else fell into step alongside them, keeping pace even though he seemed unhurried.

"A semi plowed into your car, in case you were wondering," this new person said. He sounded both bored and annoyed. John wished Deacon would come back instead. "Both you and your older son have extensive injuries. Potentially fatal, in his case. It's a difficult call under your family's particular circumstances. Difficult even for me."

John looked up, even though he was fairly sure his eyes were closed. A gaunt old man in dress blues climbed into the chopper alongside him.

Harry? No. This man was far older and far more skeletal. He was also the most sober person John had ever seen in his life.

The dress blues he knew from decades of nightmares shifted into an undertaker's black suit. The man's hands folded over the head of a sturdy, elegant cane. John's gaze was drawn to a large ring with a square, white stone.

"You were meant to die thirty-five years ago," he informed John. "But there was interference."

John laughed bitterly. He remembered how this went. He was dead, and it was messing with the paperwork.

"You have no idea," the man drawled. "There is a certain amount of leeway given for the inevitable bargains and deals and miracles, but this has gone far beyond the pale. What I'm trying to figure out is _why_."

"Why..." John asked. "Why didn't Sam kill the demon?"

The man snorted in contempt. "Sentiment, no doubt. That's the way it is with you humans. The point is, you should be dead. So should Dean. Rather, he shouldn't even _exist_. Someone is meddling, and I have my suspicions as to who that is. As I said, I do not know why. Yet. I am far more restricted in my agency than you might surmise. There are, however, _ways_. And I am very, very patient."

He reached out and rested the flat of his ring on John's forehead.

"I know who you are," John whispered. "So, it's over?"

"Don't be melodramatic," Death said. "I'm giving you another extension. After thirty-five years, the damage is more than done, so a little longer shouldn't matter. Besides, let us just say that your unique nature should give you some advantages. It lets you slip through the cracks, shall we say."

Death smiled, or at least the corners of his mouth lifted.

"Or maybe it's more accurate to say that you can slip between the lines. Oh, yes. I am aware of those penny-dreadfuls of yours, although I don't believe many of the other players in this drama are. I shall be watching you with great interest, John Winchester. It goes without saying that I will also be watching your sons."

John tried to tell him to stay the hell away from his boys, but the chopper was landing and he was drifting back towards true consciousness.

Death sighed. "I do wish I could see into those memories of yours. So many answers to so many questions... I suppose you and I will learn them when you're dead."

But that would be too late.

"It's only too late when the story is completely over," Death said. He vanished just as the chopper landed at the hospital.

 

 **Now**

Once he comes down from the white-hot high of the pain, John realizes that Gabriel could probably give Alastair a few lessons.

 _Now what do you see?_

He sees Dean, older and sadder and wiser. He hears his own voice telling Dean certain things. About bloodlines. And manipulation. And Destiny.

It's the same voice that told him how to pull the curtain across his mind. It's the same voice that told him how physical torture paved the way for the dissolution of the soul. It's his own voice, but he isn't the one speaking.

 _That, in case you didn't know, was my dear brother Michael. You would have remembered this all on your own sooner or later, but from what you're telling me, I think time's running out. That means it was time to give you a nudge._

John is still listening to the memory. Dean is saying something about Mary, and how she'll forget the warning he gave her not to go into the nursery...

She could have been saved.

This all could have been avoided.

 _Yes. It could have_ , Gabriel says, and he knows better than to joke around. Even Raguel shrinks back.

 _Now_ that's _what I want to see,_ Gabriel says. _That's some damn fine righteous fury. And here you doubted that you really loved that woman? Please._

"Her name is Mary." His voice--his actual voice--rings throughout Limbo for the first time.

 _Yes! Yes! That's it!_

He remembers that prayer she used to say. He knows what it means, now.

He doesn't much appreciate Gabriel's cackling.

He knew the angels had interfered. He had never imagined how much. He had never known how high the stakes were.

Well, he knew now, and he clung to that knowledge like an anchor even though there was nothing he could do about it.


	10. Part Ten

**2006**

John stood by Dean's bedside, watching the rise and fall of breath as if it was the most important thing in the world.

No. There was no 'as if' about it.

He still remembered his encounter with Death, and he knew he was meant to remember. Two sides were battling over his children, and Death himself was taking an interest. His boys were key players in a game whose stakes he couldn't even begin to understand.

He knew that, now.

He knew that, and it didn't mean shit.

John reached out with his uninjured arm and rested his palm on Dean's forehead. It hurt to see him so pale, so still. It hurt more than the bullet in his leg or the memory of Azazel's corruption.

"You're gonna be okay, Dean," he said. He spoke softly, even though he wanted to shout at Dean to wake up, wake up damn it. "I'm going to make sure of that. Sam's helping, too."

Of course, Sam didn't know how he was helping. All he knew was that John needed the Colt and a batch of very specific ingredients.

"About Sam," John said. He looked around, wishing there was a window in the room so he could check the skies. "I learned a few things from the demon. I won't go into how, I did. He was careless."

He smiled, although there was nothing to smile about. "He got cocky. He let a few things slip--"

His phone vibrated. He'd kept it on despite the hospital prohibition. As soon as he saw the number, he answered.

"Bobby? Did Sam get there okay?"

"Yeah, he got here okay, you jackass!" Bobby yelled. "What the hell are you doing, having him get you ingredients for a goddamn summoning ritual?"

A nurse came in the room, and John slipped out before she could yell at him for using his cell phone.

"None of your damned business, Bobby! Now, did you give him what I asked for or not?"

Habit nearly made him lash back when he heard angry spluttering on the other end of the line. But then he heard the words he said, and he leaned back hard against the wall.

"I'm sorry," he said.

There was stunned silence on the other end of the line.

"Hold on," Bobby said after a moment. "Did I just hear you say you're _sorry_?"

"Don't gloat," John snarled.

"Didn't mean to ruin the moment," Bobby said. "Just..."

"I know."

Bobby cleared his throat. "Look. I don't know why, but I'm trusting you on this, John. I gave Sam what you sent him for. Are somewhere you can't be overheard?"

John moved towards the end of the hallway. A window looked out onto a patchy sky.

"There's no such place. Not anymore," he said, eyes firmly on the sky.

There was a grunt on the other end of the phone. Acknowledgement, or maybe annoyance. "Great. I'll play cagey on this end. So, as far as you can tell me without getting anyone in any more trouble than they're in, what the _hell_ are you thinking?"

John took a deep breath and took a big risk. "I'm thinking that the demon is raising an--"

"Christ! Sorry John, but I lost what you said. Damn, but that was some feedback. You still there?"

The tree outside slowed its violent swaying. The wind that had gusted up had quieted down just as fast as it had risen up.

"Yeah. Still here. For now. Anyhow, Dean's in real bad shape."

There was another long silence. "Sam told me."

John closed his eyes. The pain in Bobby's voice matched his own.

"He's my son, Bobby. You know I'll do whatever it takes to save him. Stupid doesn't enter into it."

Bobby cleared his throat. "Well, like I said, I gave Sam what you asked for. So no, stupid doesn't enter into it."

"Thank you."

"You know, he didn't realize what it was for. A basic summoning spell. He and Dean also couldn't tell that the Masters girl was possessed." John could hear the anger being bit back. "They didn't even know a basic Devil's Trap!"

No. They didn't. John didn't want to enter into this old argument again. What difference would it make?

"Thank you. For teaching them that."

"What the hell were you--uh, you're welcome. I guess?"

No one was around, so John put his back to the wall, and gently eased himself down to the floor. The bullet wound in his leg was throbbing.

"I'm just glad you were there to pick up the slack."

"Any time. You know that."

He did. John shook his head and laughed bitterly.

"What? What is it?"

"Nothing," John said. "Just... I think you and my Uncle Jack would've gotten along real well."

It didn't matter what happened to him. His boys would be looked after, and looked after by someone who would do good by them.

John heard a snort of laughter on the other end. "Why? Was he a paranoid bastard, too?"

"One of the very best."

There was another long silence, one John was hard-pressed to read.

"I'm sorry I never had the privilege," Bobby said simply. "Sam should be back at the hospital in about ten minutes or so. Um, hate to tell you this, but he caught me a bit off guard when he showed me that list of supplies, so don't be surprised if he comes to you loaded for bear."

John pinched the bridge of his nose and gritted his teeth against the headache. "Great. I knew I could count on you, Bobby."

He could. He knew that.

"Screw you, jarhead."

"Fuck off, Singer."

They hung up on each other.

John's hand fell to his side in relief.

Bobby would help the boys. He would teach them what they needed to know to survive, to stay safe. To keep each other safe.

And maybe, just maybe, he would make up for all the ways John had failed.

 

 **2003**

"I don't need your _help_ , Bobby. Dean knows what he needs to know. Stay out of this." He kept shoving clothes into his duffel.

Bobby stood in the bedroom doorway, gripping the jamb so tightly it looked like he was restraining himself from charging into the room. "Stay _out_ of this? Are you serious? John, the case you're heading out on is so obviously a demon possession it all but smacked you upside the head with a bag of sulfur! And Dean thinks you're hunting a _werewolf_?"

John zipped the bag shut. He had told Dean to pack up earlier that morning. "He drew his own conclusions based on the news reports," he said. "And I'm not letting him tag along on this hunt with me, so no harm done. Leave it alone, Bobby. I'll call you when I get to Denver."

The conversation was over. He was going on this hunt alone, and he had every intention of sending Dean to take out a nest of snipe.

"'He drew his own conclusions?' What the hell are you teaching that kid, John?"

"The basics. The last time they ran across a demon, their mother died. They're not going to get to meet another one if I have my way. They know what a demon is, and they know what they need to get clear if they do. I made sure of that."

"And that's it? That's all you taught them? You know that them running across a demon's only a matter of time. I was talking to Dean yesterday--"

He stood up and hefted the duffel over his shoulder. "You are _not_ going to tell him about this."

"Well, when the hell are _you_ going to? And I didn't say anything about anything. I just listened to him bragging about what you'd taught him about demons, and it was like listening to a Cub Scout who thought he was all ready to go to war because his tough Marine of a daddy taught him to tie a few damn knots."

The surge of anger John made him feel calm the way extreme cold felt like burning. "We're not talking about this right now."

He pushed past Bobby and went downstairs.

"The hell we're not talking about this." Bobby thundered down the stairs just a few steps behind John. John stopped short and turned, forcing Bobby to teeter to a halt on the bottom step.

"I told you to drop it, Singer." He turned his back on the man and headed out the front door.

Of course Bobby followed after him.

"I thought you wanted to keep them safe! That's what you wanted more than anything, right? You've taught 'em how to shoot, how to swindle, and every other goddamn unsavory part of the life except the things they need to know most! I'm not letting you put those boys in danger."

John flung the duffle down on the porch. He was in Bobby's face in a hot second, all but jabbing his finger in Bobby's chest.

"Stop acting like you're their father."

Bobby's face was fire-red. He didn't give any ground. "Maybe I will when you _start_ acting like it!"

John's eyes narrowed. He didn't move. "Excuse me?"

"I don't know what's up with you, but you've been acting more like a drill sergeant than a father the past several years. You ever wonder _why_ Sam took off like that?"

John would have taken a swing at him but Bobby took a step back into the house and grabbed a shotgun from the umbrella stand.

"That how you want to end this conversation, pal?"

"So I'm supposed to act like a _father_ ," John snarled. "What do you want me to do? Huh? Drag them to a baseball game? Take them to get their first beer? Kinda late for that. Or maybe I should have taught them how to drive like it was some sort of privilege and not a goddanm survival skill!"

Bobby looked him up and down with disgust. "That's play acting at being a dad, and you know it. Do you really think you're doing that kid out in Minnesota any favors?"

"That has nothing to do with this," John said, even though Bobby had hit home hard. He never should have told Bobby about Adam Milligan, but Bobby was right.

Like Kate, Adam was a substitute for something he no longer had and a reminder of that loss.

"I did my job, Bobby. I kept my boys alive."

Bobby raised his eyebrows. " _Your_ boys. That's what this is about. You. Do you even know Sam and Dean anymore?"

"You have no right to say that to me," he snarled.

"You're in my house and you've been eating my food and drinking my whiskey and I can say whatever the hell I want to you! And right now what I'm telling you is that if you keep this up, you're not going to have any family _left_ to save!"

John grabbed his bag and pounded down the front steps.

"You get your ass back inside, Winchester, and then you, me and Dean are going to have ourselves a nice long talk!" Bobby called out.

John kept going down the front walk. This was no longer about demons and what his sons did or didn't know.

"You get back here right now or so help me, I'll fill your backside with buckshot, you stupid, stubborn son of a bitch!"

Dean came running from back behind one of the storage sheds. No doubt he had heard them yelling. He looked panicked, and John recognized that look from back when Sam was with them.

John didn't need anyone barging in to play peacemaker just then.

"You stay out of this, Dean!" John bellowed, loud enough to be heard halfway across the scrap yard. Dean skidded to a halt. His eyes went wide.

He pointed at Dean, then swung his arm sharply to point at the Impala. "We're leaving! Get in the car!"

"But..."

"If you didn't put your stuff in the car like I told you earlier, it's too late. I gave you an order, Dean. Car. _Now_."

Dean obeyed, but slowly, watching the two men the way he might a snake about to strike. "Just as long as everything's fine here, right?"

"We're fine." John heard Bobby rack his shotgun.

"If you don't stop, I swear I _will_ shoot you!"

John kept walking. He called Bobby's bluff the way Sam had called his two years ago.

That said, he half-expected the Impala's back window to explode in fragments as they peeled out of there.

"So... I guess we're not going back to Bobby's anytime soon?" Dean asked. He spoke with a casualness that reminded John of the silence of years past.

"No," John said. He kept his eyes focused on the road and concentrated on drowning out the inner voice that screamed at him to turn the car around _right now_. "We're not."

"Uh, what happened?"

"Difference of opinion," John snarled.

"He was going to _shoot_ you, Dad," Dean pointed out with a casualness John didn't believe for a second. "It must have been one hell of a difference."

John didn't answer right away. Too many of Bobby's words echoed through his head, but he was too angry to listen.

"It was," he said finally.

After a few quips, Dean fell silent again. It had been that way more and more since Sam abandoned them. Unless John asked a direct question, all he ever got from Dean was jokes or silence.

Dean without Sam wasn't the Dean that John had come to know over the past twenty years. John wasn't sure _who_ he was, really.

Sam without Dean and John had gone and built himself a brand new life that didn't have any room for his father or his brother.

 _"If you keep this up, you're not going to have any family_ left _to save."_

John silently told Bobby to shut up. He was doing what he had to do. If the demon wasn't lying, he only had two years left.

When they finally stopped for the night, John lay unsleeping on his bed while Dean was out sampling whatever local nightlife was out there. He would probably come back at two in the morning with a pocketful of cash from hustling pool and an apologetic smile as he told John that maybe they should leave a little earlier than planned.

John tried to grab what little sleep he could, but the fight with Bobby kept prickling up into his mind. He could ignore that easily enough, but there was another, sweeter voice that was impossible to ignore.

 _"I was so worried about my family that I almost wrecked it,"_ Mary said, and he could not shut her out. Not any more.

Not now that he understood what she meant, all those years ago.

And now it was too late. But at least he could spend the next two years doing what he could to save Sam and Dean. They could always rebuild their lives, build new families of their own, but they couldn't do that if the demon won.

A few days later, he and Dean stopped in Portland and John went out and stole a truck.

Dean met him under a skyway overpass. He was leaning indolently against the Impala, but he stood up straight and his eyes went wide when John drove up.

Dean whistled low when John stepped down from the driver's seat. "That's one big truck," he said.

John thumped the truck's hood. "Yup. Should be able to get a lot of stuff in there."

Dean circled the truck slowly, looking it up and down, but it was hard to tell if he was cataloguing features or flaws. "Looks awesome, Dad," he said, but without much enthusiasm.

"What's wrong with it?" John snapped.

"Nothing! Nothing's wrong with it!" Dean said quickly. "It's just..." he looked away and sheepishly ran his hand through his hair. "It's just that, well... this doesn't mean you're getting rid of the Impala, does it?"

The way his voice broke like a teenager's was funny and not all at the same time. John couldn't help what he did next.

"Yeah, it means I'm getting rid of the Impala."

Dean's shocked expression was kind of funny, but only because of the completely different kind of shock that followed hard on its heels when John tossed the Impala's keys to Dean.

The utter look of joy on Dean's face when it all sunk in warmed John's heart and broke it to pieces.

He hadn't seen Dean smile like that for a long, long time.

"I know she'll be in good hands," John said.

"Yes, sir!" Dean said, and it was the first time John had heard those words said in quite that way. Then, Dean looked puzzled all over again. "Uh, why?"

John shrugged. "I'm going to need you to start working some jobs solo." He didn't say why, but from the way Dean was fondling the keys, he had a feeling Dean wouldn't be thinking to wonder about that for a while. "You'll need your own wheels."

He clapped Dean on the shoulder. "See you up in Seattle, Dean."

Dean walked over to the Impala and slid into the driver's seat like he belonged there. The engine roared to life as if even the car was happy, now.

John stood under the skyway for a long, long time after he watched the car and its driver made their way past the giant concrete pillars that made them look frighteningly small and fragile.

Maybe there was still hope out there somewhere. Hope for him. Hope for his family.

He just wondered if he would ever find it, and what he would do if he did.

 

 **Now**

 _So,_ Gabriel says, _you're stuck down here like a piece of dry-aged beef while the forces of heaven and hell are working your boys like they're a pair of Muppets. Sucks, doesn't it?_

There is nothing John can say to that.

 _Did you ever wonder why I, who was once one of the mightiest beings in all of creation, bothered to take the time to talk to_ you?

John presumes it's because of the traces of Michael that remain in him. Thanks to that, he knows that tormenting him is something Gabriel finds amusing. All in all, Gabriel is no better and possibly a lot worse than a lot of his angelic brethren.

Raguel takes exception to this, and gives John a gentle nudge that leaves him feeling bruised all over.

 _We all have our faults, John. Anyhow, what say we break out of here?_

Impossible, John says, but the rush of hope is agonizing.

 _Mmmmaybe not? Like I said, I'm the Cooler King. I'm the man with the plan._

So you've said.

 _Look. There's a place and a time where we can break through. From my perspective, it's already happened. The big event is going to happen soon, from your perspective. More of that destiny crap. But you know what destiny always leaves out?_

He's clearly waiting for John to prod him to go on. What does destiny always leave out? he asks.

 _Ooh. Nice to know that Alastair hasn't entirely flayed out what little sense of humor you had to begin with. Anyhow, destiny sometimes gets a little sloppy about the details. Little things slip through the cracks._

John points out that an archangel isn't exactly a little thing.

 _A_ dead _and_ decaying _archangel. Plus a dead human, a dead and_ insane _seraph and three dead angels. It's Great Escape time. Or it will be when Azazel uses the Colt to open the Gates of Hell._

Gabriel now has John's full attention.

 _When the gates open, it will be a mass exodus among mass chaos. A few fugitive angels probably won't be noticed in the rush._

It doesn't take long for John to see the problem with that.

 _Yeah. We've kind of got to break into Hell first._

Oh. Was that all?

 _No. Then there's the problem that time is so damned fluid here, and that we're falling apart like a moth-eaten sweater. We've got to break out of here in_ one piece.

Right. Then there are all those hundreds and hundreds of demons to get through. If they do get noticed, they'll be in trouble.

 _Actually, no._ John feels the smirk surrounding him in the void. _Uh, archangel here. That means something, even though I'm only running at twenty-percent steam. I also spent a good few centuries being a Norse god, which was a lot more fun. Ooh, those Scandinavian ladies... And then there was that little 'cross cultural exchange' with the Hindu pantheon. Tell you what, when we bust out of here, I could always hook you up with a Valkyrie or a hot little deva if you want._

John sputters.

Zadkiel swoops in closer. _Don't tease, Gabriel._

 _It's what I do best, sweet wings. Now pay attention, Zee, because you're going to want to hear this, too. This isn't_ just _about the six of us breaking free of Limbo Partytown._

Zadkiel bends her attention towards Gabriel, and it reminds him of a puppy cocking its head. It's funny, but John thinks of her as little, even though she would dwarf the Sears Tower. Perhaps it is because Michelle Dinh was so small he mistook her body for a child's at first. More likely, it is because Raguel is so much larger, and Gabriel even larger still.

Hold on. Six? John recalls that Gabriel mentioned three dead angels. He had assumed that meant Gabriel, Raguel, and Zadkiel. But if that was the case, Gabriel wouldn't have mentioned his and Raguel's ranks.

Gabriel shifts in the void, and John is aware of two other entities clinging close to him. They are small, much smaller than Zadkiel, and the way Gabriel cradles them close reminds him of pictures he saw of moons orbiting Jupiter.

Who are they?

Every now and then, something in Gabriel's voice reminds John of just how dangerous he truly is.

 _A couple of my sisters who got screwed over._

Zadkiel moves closer to take a look, and her cry of pain at the state of the two smaller angels is awful to hear.

One is almost human-sized, and she has red, red hair.

 _You remember Anna, don't you?_

He does. She is much smaller than when he saw her last.

The other is sputtering with confusion and a sense of betrayal. There is very little left of her.

 _This is Rachel. They're coming with us._

John would not have taken Gabriel as the sort who'd take on a couple of charity cases. They weren't going to be taking everyone in Limbo out with them after all. Were they?

 _Shut up. I'm not_ that _much of a bastard. Usually. I pay my debts, and these two have some very interesting information. According to Rachel, things in Heaven have gone to hell since my dear brother shanked me. I'm also thinking she might be helpful to prod someone's conscience along. I might do something like 'A Christmas Carol.' That's always a classic. Ooh! I know, Rags can be the Ghost of Christmas--_

Gabriel...

 _Sorry! Anyhow, I was just thinking it could be--_

John cuts him off. He recognizes this sort of rambling and joking. He knows what it masks.

Gabriel considers him carefully. When he speaks, there's no joking, no grandstanding.

 _I didn't tell you why I left you three alone for as long as I did, did I?_

There is a long silence.

 _Raphael is dead,_ I don't know when it happens, except that it's somewhere far up the timeline from when I was killed.

John remembers lightning, and he thinks Raguel flinches. Zadkiel gives a little cry of fear.

 _Don't worry. He's not here. Not anymore. When I say he's dead, I mean he's_ dead. _Really dead. Something blasted him to tiny bits and did it so thoroughly that when I found him it was like trying to talk to steak tartare. I gleaned what I could, but..._

John know there is probably no love lost between Gabriel and Raphael, but they were brothers.

He thinks of Sam and Dean. He also thinks of Uncle Jack and Grandpa Jimmy.

 _There was too much damage. He faded away before I could do anything. I learned some things, though._

Such as?

 _Such as I'm no longer so sure there's anything to escape_ to. _Destiny as we know it has gone off the rails, the lunatics have been running the asylum, the Fates are pitching a fit, there's two insane archangels crammed into a cage meant to hold just_ one, _and I've got a younger brother who's going through some_ interesting _growing pains. I guess that's what he gets for hanging around your kids--and shut up Rachel, you're sounding like a broken record on the subject._

Come again?

 _Never mind. I damn near gave up, but at least this way I'm going out doing something and not just fading away into Creation Mulch._

John thinks Gabriel and Harry would have gotten along quite well. Either that, or they would have destroyed the entire east coast after a drinking binge.

 _Anyhow, once we blow this popsicle stand, I'm going to jump those of us who died in the future forward in time to sometime where we won't cause a universe-ending paradox by simply existing._ Star Trek _got more right than it got wrong, in the long run._

Oh.

 _I never said this was safe. Anyhow, since we're all dead, no one will be looking for us._ There's a laugh that's contagious for all that it's the scariest thing John has heard since he's gotten here. _That means we'll be able to cause a_ lot _of damage_.

John asks what will happen to him after they escape.

 _Oh, that's up to you_ , and something in Gabriel's voice tells John to pay very close attention to what he's _not_ saying. _For starters, you'll go to heaven_.

John points out that he sold his soul.

 _For a just cause. Sort of. Noble sacrifice, yadda-yadda. So yeah, you not only get admission to the theme park, you get the E ticket._

Gabriel brushes up against John and something rubs off. Even more memories shake loose--no, not memories. Knowledge. Maps. Passwords.

 _Heaven's a nice place_ , Gabriel says in one of the more staggering understatements John has ever heard. _Nice in a 'Brave New World' sort of way. Still, if you don't rock the boat, you'll have a nice, happy, bland eternity jacked in to the best entertainment center the universe has to offer._

The information Gabriel has knocked loose from the scraps of Michael's memories tells him that there are many interesting ways one _could_ rock the boat if so inclined.

There's also a tempting fragment about soulmates, but this is not the time to look at it. It's as tempting as Alastair's knife used to be.

Gabriel sighs. _That said, I suppose it's a crying shame that the upper management are the ones who've been messing around with Sam and Dean so much. Yeah, management changes a few years into your future, but you know what they say--meet the new boss, same as the old boss._

That is a very good point. John lets it sink in.

 _Given that you're their dad, it's probably a good thing you'll know how to get around under the radar up there. I also wonder what would happen if some of the other inmates got wind of how their happy little asylum's being run._

There's a pause that isn't so much tense as buoyant.

 _Wink-wink, nudge-nudge._

John gets the message loud and clear. Raguel rumbles in approval, and while Zadkiel is dubious, she also seems intrigued.

 _Now let's talk details. You think you can keep your mouth and your mind shut for a few more torture sessions?_

John clings to that intriguing snippet about soulmates. He clings to memories that he knows are real. He can do this.

 _Okay. It's actually pretty simple..._

John is surprised at how simple it really is. There are so many ways it can go wrong, but it's not impossible.

For the first time in a very long time, there is actually something he can _do_.

Gabriel grins.

 _Deal?_

Deal.

 

 **2006**

"So we have a deal?"

Handing over the Colt was a big risk. A stupid risk. Bobby would have shot him dead on the spot if he had any idea what he was planning.

According to the letter Daniel had left him, it wasn't just a weapon--it was a key. A key Azazel wanted more than anything.

So yes, it was stupid, but stupid didn't enter into it.

"No, John, not yet," the demon said. "You still need to sweeten the pot."

"With what?" What else _was_ there?

Azazel told him.

John didn't understand. Him? The demon wanted him? A bit player?

He paused for a moment, but not because he would hesitate to offer his own life for his son's. He would do that a million times over if he could.

He had known this might happen. He had known it ever since he talked to Bobby. His life didn't matter in this. It didn't matter at all.

 _"There's something else I want, as much as that gun. Maybe more."_

If Azazel had a fatal flaw, it was saying too damned much.

They stood in the dark and dank of the basement, staring each other down as John thought through his conversation with Death.

He wondered if Death had had a good long chat with Harry, at the end.

"And here I thought you _loved_ your boys," Azazel said.

John didn't rise to the taunt. Whatever the demon said about his 'children,' he didn't know a damned thing about love.

"How 'bout I give you my soul, and the boys keep the Colt."

Azazel pouted and shook his head. "No can do. I've set the terms of the deal. Take it or leave it."

John inclined his head. "Fine. It's a deal."

For all that he had ripped Sam a new one for not shooting when he had the chance, John realized he couldn't fault the boy. Not one bit.

The deal was sealed in the usual fashion, and it wasn't the kiss that John found repulsive. The kiss itself was ordinary enough, just long enough for John to notice that the demon's lips were chapped. Instead of being carnal, it was clinical, devoid of anything that made a kiss a kiss.

What John found repulsive was the smugness and the way Azazel had clutched the back of his head like he was claiming a prized possession.

Azazel thought he had won, and in so many ways, he had.

"Go on back upstairs, John. Your precious baby boy should be waking up about now. He'll want to see his daddy. I'll meet you upstairs. You don't want to know what will happen if you don't show up with the Colt."

John left the dark and dank of the basement and went up into the antiseptic bright and white of the hospital.

He didn't have long to plan. He had a message to deliver, and no idea how to deliver it. When he passed a window, he glared out at the sky.

 _You won't stop me,_ he thought. _No, it's Sam and Dean you won't be able to stop. Whoever you are._

Sam and Dean would figure out quickly that the Colt was gone. They would probably guess who had it. There was no need to tell them they had to kill the demon or retrieve the gun.

What he could possibly say to Dean that wouldn't get stopped by the storm clouds?

 _One side wants to turn Sam into some sort of demon warlord. The other has some other plans for him. They don't want him dead, but they want something else. They're willing to kill to get it._

That probably wouldn't work.

He thought of what he could say about the past twenty two years, and all the mistakes he had made.

He thought about what would happen if the worst came to pass. There was no way Dean could possibly kill his brother. He couldn't do that any more than Sam could shoot him, or John could leave Dean to die.

John stopped, right there in the middle of the hallway. A nurse snapped an irate _excuse me!_ as she stepped around him.

He had his answer. He knew what he had to tell Dean, even if it meant Dean would never forgive him.

When he got to Dean's room, Sam was there. John stood there for a moment, drinking in the sight of both his sons. Alive. And well.

"How you feeling, dude?" John said. He could see Sam's eyes narrow, and he braced himself for a fight he didn't want to have. Not now.

"Fine, I guess. I'm alive."

John knew Dean would wonder about that, just as John had always wondered about that moment in the jungle and the warning that should have come too late, but that wasn't what was important.

Dean was alive. And if he was alive, he would find a way to save his brother. More importantly, Sam would make sure Dean stayed alive, too.

"That's what matters," he said.

His story was over. He knew how it ended.

He had faith that his sons would figure out a way to write their own ending.

Somehow.

 

 **Now**

The more he thinks about it, the less faith he has in Gabriel's plan.

For one thing, it hinges on too many uncertainties.

It will only work if Alastair and Azazel want him to see the grand ending to their plans. If the gate opens, and he is stuck in Limbo, that's it. Game over. After that it will be nothing but torture session after torture session until one day he breaks and begs to take up Alastair's knife.

He'll ask Gabriel or Raguel to un-make him before that happens.

He doesn't even want to think of what will happen if the plan is discovered before it's hatched. He thinks of all the close calls as the prisoners in _The Great Escape_ dig their tunnels and make their plans.

In a movie, it was exciting. In reality, it leaves him with a cold, churning dread. No wonder Gabriel waited as long as possible to tell him the plan.

Then there is the cornerstone of the plan itself. The more he thinks about it, the less he likes it.

Of course, his only other choices at this point are oblivion or the knife.

He also keeps asking himself if he really can trust Gabriel.

He can't. He trusted one archangel already.

Michael said he would save Mary's life if John said yes.

As promised, Michael saved Mary's life. Five minutes later, he consigned her to death without a quiver of guilt.

 _Ready?_ Gabriel asks him.

John has one question first.

 _Oh, for..._ Gabriel twists with frustration. _We're running out of time! Why are you dicking around_ now?

That frustration is the only hope that John has for getting an honest answer to my questions.

Sam and Dean, he says. Your history with them. It's not a good one, is it?

Gabriel is stonily silent. Zadkiel quivers anxiously. Raguel waits.

 _No. It's not,_ Gabriel says. _Sam in particular has a good reason to be pissed at me, but you know what?_

What?

 _The reason I am_ here is because I saved. their. asses. I went into a fight I had little hope of winning so that they could go on to fight a fight they had even less _chance of winning!_

John doesn't know how to respond.

 _You'd think that would outweigh me fucking them over a little, wouldn't you? They're_ alive _because of me, you little ingrate. Isn't that enough?_

It isn't, John says.

He feels Gabriel's outrage boil through Limbo.

It isn't enough, but John understands. He understands all too well.

He's ready.

He isn't sure what he feels from Gabriel once the surprise fades, but he thinks it might be respect.

 _Let's do this._

John hesitates, then he concentrates. It is hard to hold himself together in Limbo long enough to do this, but this is how it has to go. For only the second time since he has been there, he speaks out loud.

"Yes."

He's surprised at the lack of innuendo as Gabriel slips in.

Two minutes later, Alastair comes to fetch them.

 _I'll do what I can to shield you, but I'll need to be careful not to give myself away_. Gabriel pauses for a moment. _How bad is it out there, anyway?_

Bad.

Alastair maintains a strong grip on the back of John's neck as he leads them up to the rack. Its bars and chains are rusty with John's blood.

He then leads them past the rack and to the door.

"We'll be doing something a little different today," he says. "Something special."

 _Fuck. We cut this_ close.

John echoes Gabriel's high, hysterical laughter.

"Now, now, there's no need to be _scared_ ," Alastair chides. He hauls up on John's neck to keep his legs from buckling under him. "I'm just escorting you to your front row seat. The show will be starting soon, and you won't want to miss a minute of it."

They step out into the corridor. This time, it looks like the upstairs hallway of a modest suburban home. His home.

Alastair drags him past Dean's room, past Sam's. He sees hell-fire glowing beneath one door and oily smoke pouring out from beneath the other.

They round the bend into the stairwell, only in this place, the stairs lead up. Dull yellow crystals litter the carpet, and eventually carpet and stairs give way to a twisting cavern with sulfurous stalactites. The cavern opens up into myriad paths, and there seems to be no order to the ones Alastair selects.

Alastair leads them deeper in as he takes them further up and John starts to worry.

 _I'll be able to retrace. The thing_ I'm _worried about is how we'll know when--_

A hellquake rocks the ground beneath them. Alastair curses as he loses his footing.

 _That'll do!_

Gabriel doesn't have to urge John to get to his feet and run. The chances of them outrunning Alastair are slim, but they buy a few seconds because Alastair doesn't expect John to run back towards his torture chamber.

Demons rush past them towards an exit they can feel but cannot see. This buys them a few more seconds, and then they hear Alastair close behind them.

They're back at the stairs. The cavern narrows back into the hallway, and he hears Alastair and dozens of others giving chase.

John wonders if Gabriel really _can_ fight them off.

 _Yeah, but..._

But what?

 _Did I ever mention that in addition to being an archangel, I was also a trickster god?_

John hears a sound out in the hallway that sounds like a piano being dropped on a horde of demons.

 _Guess which job was more fun?_

Now that Gabriel has made his point, he feeds John enough strength that one stride is all it takes to get back to the torture chamber and its door back to Limbo.

Gabriel reaches a hand into the red morass. Zadkiel passes two small somethings along to Gabriel, and then John says 'yes' to her. Compared to Gabriel, she takes up no room at all.

He holds out his hand to Raguel, and for a moment, he thinks he feels a slender and very human hand in his. He stares in confusion into the red, and for a moment, he thinks he sees his grandmother.

 _I'm sorry_ , says Raguel.

So am I, says Mary Alice.

John smiles, and says 'yes.' Then he hands the reins over to Gabriel. They are back up in the caverns and surging forward amidst a swirl of demons before John even knows what's happening.

"C'mon, ladies and gent," Gabriel says. "It's a brand new day. Time to rise and _shine_."

 

 **Sunday, October 30, 1983**

That Sunday was one last golden gift of a day before the fall set in. Mary opened every single window in the house, letting in the light and the air and the glorious warmth.

"Last call for summer," she proclaimed. "I say we have an early dinner out on the picnic table. Hot dogs and hamburgers? How's that sound to everyone?"

John and Dean were all for it, of course, and Mary said she honestly didn't know which one was the bigger kid.

Mary sat on the back steps with Sam in her lap while Dean and John chased each other around the back yard. She laughed, even when warning them not to come too close to the grill.

"Can we go trick-or-treating tonight?" Dean asked when John said he was too tired of chase, and could he please just lie down and be unconscious for a while?

"Not until tomorrow, honey," Mary said. "If you went out tonight, no one would have any candy for you."

She was more relaxed about so many things these days. Halloween was just one of them. Last year, Dean had been heartbroken he had not been able to go trick or treating. Mary had been so unreasonable about all the potential dangers that John nearly took Dean out anyway just out of sheer cussedness.

This year, Mary had volunteered to take him out, and told John he could stay behind on Sammy and candy duty.

"Please," she'd wheedled. "My dad never let me go."

"That doesn't surprise me a bit. What are you going to dress up as?" he'd asked.

She leaned in closely. "Why don't I show you after we put the kids to bed?" she whispered, following it up with a gentle flick of tongue against the edge of his ear.

Maybe things had been a little rocky between them that summer, but they were much, much better now. Better than John could ever have imagined. The giddy passion that had lasted an unreal fourteen years had been replaced with something quieter and more comfortable, yet somehow much more alive. There was passion, still, but it felt different. It felt earned.

It didn't burn, but it shone. Brighter some days than others, true, but it still shone.

Mary stood up, and shifted Sam against her shoulder. "John, it's getting darker. Why don't you go ahead and put the burgers on the grill. Sam and I'll go in and get the fixin's and so on ready."

"No!" Dean shouted. It was still one of his favorite words. "Sammy wants to stay out here with me and Dad!"

"But I'll be all lonely, sweetie," Mary fake-pouted.

Dean looked heartbroken. Before Sam was born, a talk about sharing had led to Dean creating a huge pile of 'special' toys that were to be his and his alone, just like the pacifiers and bottles and such were 'special' things that Sam would not have to share with him.

John and Mary had expected to have a real problem on their hands, but just days after they brought Sam home, Dean carted nearly every one of those special toys to Sam's room to 'share,' even if sharing meant Dean played with his trucks on the floor of the nursery while Sam slept.

Mary went inside and John put Sam in the bouncy-chair they had placed at the head of the picnic table because Dean had insisted Sam thought it was more fun than the high chair.

"Let's play airplane, Daddy!" Dean yelled just seconds after John put the burgers on.

"Aren't you getting a little big for that?" he asked hopefully. His back cringed at the thought.

"No! Airplane!"

John knew when he was defeated.

"Okay. Hang on tight, buddy!"

He swooped Dean up and off the ground, flinging him high in the air, then swinging him down, so close he nearly hit the ground but never quite. Dean shrieked, but in delight, not fear. Sam crowed so exultantly John would have thought he was the one being swooped up, down, and around.

Maybe in a couple of years.

From inside he heard the sounds of cabinets opening and closing, and then Mary started singing. The kitchen windows were still open, and he could see hear her clearly. It was almost like she was right outside with them.

 _Blackbird singing in the dead of night..._

It was a glorious evening. More glorious than any he could remember in a long, long time. Sam watched John and Dean raptly, as if the up and down, up and down was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen.

 _All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free_

"I'm flying, Daddy! I'm flying!"

 _Blackbird fly, blackbird fly..._

John swooped him up. "One more time, okay?"

 _Into the light of the dark black night._

Up and down. Then up and down again because one more time didn't seem like nearly enough. The sun was low in the sky, and their shadows stretched out impossibly far as John set Dean back on the ground.

"No! Again!"

"Sorry, soldier. This airplane's just about out of fuel. Go on in and get washed up."

Dean ran back to the house and once John attended to the grill, he picked up Sam and set him in the crook of his arm. He stopped for a moment before taking him inside. For just a brief moment the sun shone directly into the kitchen, and when Mary looked up at him, still singing, he knew it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life.

It still scared him sometimes, how close he and Mary had come to breaking, but there was nothing to be afraid of now, not in a perfect moment like this. It was one of those days where nothing important happened, but he'd remember it all his life.

 _Blackbird singing in the dead of night  
Take these broken wings and learn to fly_

If only there was some way he could hang onto this moment forever.

 _All your life_

It just didn't get any better than this.

 _You were only waiting for this moment to arise._

 

 **Now ******

They rise.

The hosts of Hell come with them. Sulfurous smoke boils up and up and up, and they ride its wake, soaring past the shattered pillars of hellgates that were sealed in wars that ended before history began.

John catches glimpses and fragments of these wars from his passengers. He sees real crack and burn, and angels fall from the skies like diseased comets. Red wrath tears through the heavens, and he recognizes Raguel's laughter.

Now, Raguel pulls free from him, and her fury burns hotter than hellfire, clearing a path through the demons who are unlucky enough to be in front of them.

They continue upwards and onwards, twisting through caverns that run through layers of rock that were laid down millions of years ago. Zadkiel shows him a flash of it as it happened--it was as the blink of an eye to her--and he catches a fragment of sheer joy that belongs to both her and Michelle.

She leaves him, and she pulls John along with her in Raguel's slipstream. She dances in a plume of violet flame and heals any lingering wounds. A stray memory tells him that he should not be surprised; Zadkiel's attribute is mercy, after all.

He has forgotten what it is like not to feel pain. When he sees a light ahead of them, he is surprised that it does not burn.

 _My turn to step off the bus,_ Gabriel says. _Has this been a trip, or what?_

John says he'll go with 'or what.'

Gabriel laughs, and he pulls away smoothly, falling back to bring up the rear with his two wounded charges tucked safely beneath his wings. When the cavern narrows to a tunnel, Gabriel starts whistling the them from _The Great Escape_ , and so it is that John Winchester is laughing his ass off as he breaks free from Hell.

He sees Sam as he surges past, along with Ellen and Bobby as they surge past, but he is moving too fast to stop. He cannot see Dean.

John and the angels explode upwards with a hundred demons into a sky filled with a million lights.

He had almost forgotten about stars.

They arc up into the sky, and away from the roiling stink of the demons. For the first time in a century he tastes air that is not putrid with sulfur.

Up and up they go into the Wyoming sky, and John sees starlight glint on the shattered rails of Samuel Colt's giant devil's trap far below. A darkness that is more than just night is gathering in the center of it.

They may have escaped, but they're not done yet.

They all have their parts to play.

Zadkiel leaves first. If all goes according to plan, she will find others of her kind who will listen to her story. John worries for her, but she's wiser and warier than she was back at Devil's Gate. She spirals off into the night, a violet trail of stardust marking her path.

 _Let's not drag this out, okay?_ Gabriel calls out. _Hasta la bye-bye!_

He peels off into the future with Anna and Rachel, and John's pretty sure it's not the last he will see of them.

Raguel is the last to leave him, and she draws close before she goes. There is a sudden impression of dark hair and a red dress. He thinks he catches a glimpse of an I-dare-you smile. She gives him some of her strength. She also gives him a memory.

It's a memory, but it's also a message.

John nods his understanding, and she roars off, leaving a hundred dead demons in her wake.

As for him, his boys are down there. There is only one thing that matters now. The earth rushes towards him, and Dean is standing there, Colt in hand, rushing to the gate.

It's not over yet. John _feels_ the corruption that is Azazel before he sees the demon's favorite meatsuit. Up here, in a world that should be cool night air and soft starlight, Azazel twists and fouls the reality around him.

John moves fast, but not fast enough. Azazel grabs the Colt before Dean or John can react, and he throws Dean hard up against a tombstone.

Sam is running, too, abandoning the open gates to go to his brother's side, but Azazel pins him against a tree. Dean is moving, but he's dazed, he's hurt. Too slow.

Azazel takes aim. John can hear him gloating, even though he cannot make out the words. He can imagine them well enough after all these years. Dean knows what's about to happen, and John can see the despair blooming in his eyes.

It can't end like this, John thinks. It can't. Why couldn't the angels have stayed a little longer?

It's the battle he's been preparing to fight for more years than he can count, and there is nothing he can do.

That doesn't mean he's about to give up.

He has no hope other than Gabriel's vague and flimsy promise, but he lunges for Azazel with the rage of two lifetimes.

He collides with the demon, and forces himself to cling tight and not flinch away from the corruption.

The look of shock in Azazel's eyes is worth the pain.

Then the shock turns to mockery.

Even with the gift of Raguel's strength, John can't destroy Azazel. He can't even come close.

Not by himself, at least.

His attack might not be enough to kill Azazel, but it is more than sufficient to knock the demon clear of his stolen body for just a moment.

Azazel wrestles free of him with ridiculous ease, and pours back into his meatsuit. The whole thing took less than three seconds.

Thos three seconds are all the time Dean needs to grab the Colt and take aim.

There's only one bullet left, and it finds its mark.

Behind them, the gates to Hell slam shut.

It's only fitting that Dean made the shot, John realizes. After all, this is _his_ story. Sam's, too.

John had his small part in it, but that role is over now. He is more than okay with this.

He's dead, now. The books are balanced, and Death's paperwork has been set to rights. If Gabriel is right, that means no one is paying much attention to him.

No one who matters, anyway.

He can feel himself being pulled onwards, but he holds on long enough to see his boys one last time.

There is no time for words, but even a thousand years wouldn't have been enough for all needs to say.

It's been a century since he's seen their faces in anything that wasn't a nightmare. He drinks in what he can, not just what they look like, but everything they are.

And what they are is everything.

There's a long road ahead of them, but for now they are okay. They are okay, and maybe one day they'll find a way to forgive him for everything he has done--and for everything he didn't do.

He only has time to nod a farewell to them both. As far as they're concerned, his story is over.

He just hopes they can fight their way to a better ending than he did.

The light pulls him away at last.


	11. Epilogue

**Next**

The light wakes him from a nap. He's groggy from the unexpected sleep, and resting up against a knobby tree has not been kind to his back. He looks up and around. He is under a big old beech tree with spreading branches. It's just leafing out, casting a haze of copper and green between him and a blue, blue sky. A little ways out, he sees a playground and a chain link fence. A battered park bench sits in a patch of sunlight.

This place is familiar, it takes him a moment to figure out where he is.

 _Heaven_ , the smug remnants of that bastard Michael inform him. That's not quite what John meant, but that doesn't matter. He recognizes the old playground. It was replaced by a gas station not long after he and Mary got married, but it's back again, good as new. Or maybe good as old.

He stands up and brushes the dirt off the seat of his jeans. If he's right, there ought to be a road somewhere around here.

There is. It's a sidewalk, but in two strides it turns into a two lane highway with nothing between him and the horizon. The fields to either side are gold and green in the late afternoon sun.

The beech tree is gone, and in its place is his old motorcycle. He grins to see it--before the Impala, it was his only ride. There are some good memories that go with that bike.

He's pretty sure it ended up in his storage unit in New York. It was one of the few things from his old life that he went to any degree of trouble to hang onto. The last time he saw it, it was covered with dust, and the rear tire was flat. The bike in front of him is as good as new.

In less than a minute, he's on his bike and on the road. A helmet seems superfluous here on the Axis Mundi.

The knowledge in his head that Gabriel knocked free is the keys to the kingdom. He can take this road anywhere.

As he hopes, he finds a pair of shades in the pocket of his leather jacket. Well, it's Dean's jacket, now, but here it's his again. He thinks he knows what day this is.

He rides towards the sun and a light that shines brighter than the sun. Finding the people he wants to find isn't going to be easy--with one exception.

Even though it's impossible, the highway crosses the lane by the playground. A blonde woman now sits on the bench, her arms stretched out across the back. Her hair is gold in the afternoon sunlight.

"Hey, Mary."

She smiles, and it's blinding. Still, there's something that seems a little sad. He thinks he knows what it might be.

"Hey, you," she replies. She looks the way he remembers her on that last October evening, back when they thought they had a fresh start in front of them. Now, like then, there is not a cloud in the sky.

"Ready to go for that ride I promised?"

She looks nervous but she still swings up behind him without hesitation. "Take me to that horizon."

It's exactly what she said so many years ago, but now her voice is shaky rather than jubilant. Her arms go around him the way they did back then. It was the day before he was shipping out to San Diego, and they went on a long ride out into the country.

It was a perfect day, and if certain people hadn't meddled, it might have been the last time they ever saw each other.

He enjoys the memory for a while, letting things play out exactly as they did back in 1970.

Mary rests her cheek against his back and lets out a wistful sigh that he doesn't remember from that day.

"This feels so real," she says.

"Well," he says, trying hard to contain his laughter. "Maybe that's because it _is_. This isn't a memory, Mary."

Her shriek of surprise nearly makes him wipe out. He gains control of the bike and pulls off onto the shoulder.

He's laughing, and he can tell that Mary is being pulled between shock, delight, and good old-fashioned fury.

"John Winchester... why you..."

That's all she can get out before she starts laughing and catches him up in a hug that squeezes the breath out of him. The hug turns into a kiss, passionate and deep, and then they just hold each other, and if Heaven were like that for the rest of eternity, John wouldn't mind.

They stand like that for a while, in the gold of a sunset that is taking its sweet time.

"There's a lot I have to tell you," they both say at the same time.

John cuts to the chase. "The demon that killed you, Dean killed it. He killed it, and he saved Sam."

Mary goes pale, then red, then pale again. "So you know..."

"About the hunting? Yes. And a lot of other things, too."

They look at each other, and know that there will be a lot they will need to apologize for. There may even be an out-and-out fight about some of it, but that can wait for later. Right now, they're together, and they're in Heaven, and they have time, and they have so many other good memories to explore.

"How did you find me?" she asks. They're back under the beech tree. John has found a comfortable enough place to rest his back, and Mary is leaning up against him. His cheek rests against her hair.

All the false memories of her flicker through his mind, but they can gain no purchase here.

"Do you really need to ask?"

She laughs. "I suppose not. So, there's something else you need to tell me, isn't there?"

"Yes."

Mary goes quiet for a good long time.

"I'm going to be very angry with you, aren't I?" she says sadly.

"Yes."

Still, he tells her everything. What he has learned from Gabriel. From his research. From Azazel and Alastair and the memories in his own head.

He tells her about the deal he made, and why.

He tells her about Mary Alice and Raguel.

He tells her about that son-of-a bitch Michael, and what he did to their family.

He tells her about Hell.

He tells her about all the ways he failed their sons.

She gets up, she slaps him, and she stalks off, vanishing down the Axis Mundi.

Five minutes later, he goes after her.

He eventually finds her at the counter at Jay Bird's, staring down into a cup of coffee. They had their first date here. She looks up when she hears the bells on the door, and she casts a glance at the stool next to her before returning to the coffee.

The memory of a waitress pours him a cup of coffee. He sips at it and waits for her to speak. There's no point in saying that he's sorry. They both know he is.

"I'm not sure I would have been any better," she says.

"I think you would have been."

She thinks about that for a while, and John wonders about all the things that she needs to tell him. It can wait until she's ready, though.

At last, she turns and looks him square in the eye.

"They can't do this to our boys." The cool fierceness in her eyes sets something aflame again in his heart.

"You really think we can stand against Heaven?" It's not a protest. It's a dare.

The sharp smile she gives him is the best answer ever.

"We maybe can't beat them, but there's enough in here," he says, tapping at the side of his head, "that lets me know how to fly under their radar and maybe mess things up a little."

"Or mess things up a _lot_." Her smile that reminds him of Mary Alice's--and of Raguel's.

"You know, I think I'm a little afraid of you right now," he says, then laughs as she gives him an affectionate shove.

"You should be, if you know what's good for you. Did you know about that ghost that tried to hurt Sam and Dean, back in our old house?"

"Yes." He remembers that day, and the agony he felt being so close to them and yet so far away. Feeling that reminds him that Heaven is not perfect. Far from it.

"Nobody hurts my children. Not even an archangel," she says.

They get up from the counter and head outside.

The view out Jay Bird's window is of Main Street, but the door opens out onto the verge of a two-lane highway. The motorcycle is waiting for them.

"They'll try to crush us, once they figure out what we're doing, but I've got a few tricks up my sleeve now." He has Michael to thank for that as much as Gabriel, but he'll never admit that out loud. "It may take a while before we can take the fight to them, but short term, I know how to keep us safe."

"Good. And what happens after safe?" There's a gleam in her eye.

They get back on the bike, and her arms fall comfortably around his waist.

"There are some people here who'll want in on this, once they hear the truth," he says. Bill. Jim. Caleb. Daniel. Harry. More than that, even. No hunter he ever knew would take kindly to having been played. "It may take a while, but I think I can find them."

John laughs, and the last image Raguel sent him slides into his mind:

 _A winter night, snow swirling like stardust in the glow of the streetlights. She waits in an elegant car the color of sweet cream. A silver angel poised for flight on its hood. Any moment now, an old Ford truck will come rattling over the cobbles bringing the two men she loved more than anything._

Once you know how to navigate Heaven, all roads lead to home.

"Meanwhile, there's someone out there you'll want to meet."

"Who?"

"Oh, just an old friend of yours you haven't met yet," he says, and gets a good-humored snarl for his trouble. "Let's go."

They have work to do, but there's no need to point out something so obvious.

He revs the motor, and he feels her nod as she squeezes him tight.

They peel out onto the Axis Mundi. Together.

The two lane highway stretches all the way out to the western horizon. The sun hangs low in the sky in front of them.

"Riding off into the sunset?" He can hear Mary's delighted laughter clearly over the rush of the wind. " _Really_ , John?"

"Yeah, that's a cheesy ending." It really is. "But you know, I think we can do better than that."

They can. He opens the throttle even though the motorcycle is already going at top speed. He is not too surprised when it goes faster still. The wheatfields streak by in a blur of gold.

Ahead of them, the sun begins to rise.


End file.
